2011.02.18 El Escorial 1/2

The first day before arriving at Salamanca, the group did a detour to El Escorial to visit a monastery, which is known as the El Real Monasterio de El Escorial. The tour was in English and I did enjoy myself for once. Hahahaha. . .

The side of the monastery.

The Library

Another reason I really enjoyed the tour was that it gave me a different perspective of Spain. Throughout my entire staying in Madrid, I observed that the war between the Christians and the Muslims in the past did affect how most of the Spanish artifacts were painted or built. In many paintings in castles, cathedrals and even in the Prado Museum, the crescent that represented Islam was always at the feet of one of the Christian Saints. This just show how little tolerance the people have when they are at war and it bothered me seeing how beautiful artifacts or paintings were created with so much hatred and disgust for another religion. However, it was different with the El Real Monasterio de El Escorial. King Philip II was an extremely open-minded king. He knew that even though there were disagreement between the Christians and the Muslims, but it did not matter because at the end, we are all humans. Therefore, King Phillip II collected all sorts of books in various languages including Arabic. The books are then donated to the library in the monastery and over a period of time, the library in the monastery is now the second most important library in the world after the library in the Vatican City in terms of the quality of the books in the library. I was glad that at least King Phillip II was able to realize the importance of education regardless of the language it is written in.

This is the only picture that I have of the museum that was sharp with the right composition.

The Cathedral

After visiting the beautifully decorated library, I was once again amazed by the beauty of the cathedral. It is the most beautiful cathedral in Spain that I have visited thus far. With all the fancy decoration, the cathedral to me was made like for a Royal Wedding. It is just bright and beautiful. This is very rare for a cathedral because almost all the cathedral that I have visited was slightly gloomy leaning towards dim and a slight feeling of solemn.

Outside the Cathedral:

The cathedral form the outside.

A front view when standing on the porch in front of the cathedral.

Inside the cathedral:

This is the stand and the table. 11 meters below this table lies the chamber of the Pantheon of the Kings.


This is King Phillip II's room where he passed away peaceful in the monastery. His room is in the cathedral right beside where the stand and table is in the photo above.

to be continued...