A day in the country - El Escorial

Today we had a day in the country. Atocha railway station is one of the two main stations for trips out of Madrid. They are carrying our renovations, but by accident we found our way to the old part which has a large tropical garden and a pond full of tortoises.

This was our first view of Escorial built at the foot of the Sierra de Guardarrama north west of Madrid.

 It has extensive gardens, manicured to within an inch of their lives.

 El Escorial was built between 1563 and 1584 as the final resting place for Carlos I of Spain. It is an enormous building, having 2,600 windows and 4000 rooms. The museum, chapter houses, library and royal pantheon are richly decorated and full of artworks, tapestries and painted ceilings. Photography is not permitted inside the building but if you promise not to tell here is a picture of the library which once held 40,000 volumes plus rare and precious manuscripts.

 And here is parts of it's rather beautiful ceiling.

We walked back to the train station through a beautiful park, the paths lines with some type of pine with interesting bark.