Elmira College Spain 2013: El Escorial and El Valle de Los Caídos

Saturday, May 11 turned out to be bright and sunny for us as we traveled to El Escorial and El Valle de Los Caídos (Valley of the Fallen).

Having won a battle against the French on August 10, 1557, the day of Saint Lorenzo, King Felipe II had el Escorial constructed in honor of the Saint, as well as a projection of royal power. The building is 207 meters long and 161 meters wide. It has 9 towers, 88 fountains, 16 patios, 2,673 windows, and 1,200 doors. El Escorial serves as a monastery, basilica, palace, library, school, museum, and pantheon. I think you can begin to imagine how immense this building is!! In fact, El Escorial is so impressive that it was considered the 8^th wonder of the world during the 16^th and 17^th centuries!

El Escorial is also the resting place of all of the Spanish Monarchs from Carlos I through Alfonso XIII (with the exception of Felipe V and Fernando VI). The Mausoleum is located beneath el Escorial and is an incredible sight to see. There are numerous rooms serving as the resting areas of not only the Spanish Monarchs, but for their families as well that did not serve as King or Queen, including a special area for infants.

El Escorial - this is only part of the masssive building!

Patio de los Reyes

The gardens of El Escorial

The basilica of El Escorial

After our time visiting El Escorial, we climbed back on our bus to head to el Valle de los Caidos. El Valle de los Caidos was built at the end of the Spanish Civil War, during Franco's dictatorship. At the end of the Civil War, Franco wanted to build a monument to commemorate the victory of the nationalists over the republicans, as well as in memory of the nationalists that lost their lives during the war. He used republican slaves to build el Valle de los Caidos, forcing them to partake in creating a monument to honor those that they had spent the entire Civil War fighting against.

El Valle de los Caidos is also the tomb of José Antonio Primo de Rivera, the founder of the Spanish fascist party, and Francisco Franco, the dictator of Spain from the end of the Civil War in 1939 until his death in 1975. Originally, there were only soldiers from the nationalist (Franco's) army buried here along with Franco and Primo de Rivera, but after plenty of controversy regarding how the horrific period of time under Franco's rule should be remembered (which still continues today), soldiers from the republican party were buried here as well. It certainly was an eerie experience visiting a place with such a strong connection to a horrible time in Spain's history, but it was very relevant to what we have been learning about Franco and his dictatorship.