Village
The Real Sitio de San Ildefonso is a Segovian municipality that brings together La Granja, Valsaín, La Pradera de Navalhorno and Riofrío, 7 kilometres from the capital, at the foot of the mountains of the Sistema Central. Its history is tied to the Palacios Reales, first that of Valsaín, built over a chapel ceded in 1477 by the Reyes Católicos to the Monasterio del Parral; from there arose the complex of the Palacio Real de La Granja and the Real Fábrica de Cristales. It was constituted as San Ildefonso in 1810, lost the title of real sitio under the Second Republic and became known as San Ildefonso-La Granja, until in 2009 it recovered the name Real Sitio de San Ildefonso, in force since 2010. On 25 August, for San Luis, it celebrates the Judiada, a popular meal built around the judión bean from its market gardens. It has today about 5,200 inhabitants.
Monument
Philip V bought the estate from the Hieronymite friars of the El Parral monastery, who had an old farm (granja) there that gives the Real Sitio its name, and in 1719 ordered a chapel to be built in its surroundings "without demolishing anything of the old", which explains the irregularity of the resulting complex, described as an accumulation of additions. Work on the palace began in 1721 under the direction of Teodoro Ardemans. Situated on the northern slope of the Sierra de Guadarrama, 13 kilometres from Segovia and about 80 from Madrid, it has been declared a monumental site since 11 August 1925 and is managed by Patrimonio Nacional, which keeps it open to the public.
Monument
The gardens cover 146 hectares and bring together 29 fountains with more than three hundred jets, sculpted by René Frémin, Jean Thierry and Hubert Dumandré over the French classicist layout begun by René Carlier and continued by Étienne Boutelou.
Curiosity
The fountains work by gravity alone: water from the mountains fills the pool of El Mar, of 216,000 cubic metres, and eight further reservoirs regulate the pressures. Some jets exceed forty metres, more than Versailles ever reached.
Historical milestone
The first Spanish Bourbon died in 1746 in the palace he had built in order to retire, and was buried in its collegiate church; unlike the rest of the kings of his dynasty, he does not rest in the pantheon of El Escorial but in the Real Sitio.
Historical milestone
A devastating fire destroyed on 2 January 1918 the upper floors of the Royal Palace of La Granja and with them frescoes, lamps and furniture. The loss made it necessary to remake much of the building's interior decoration.
Monument
It was born in 1727 when the master glassmakers Buenaventura Sit and Carlos Sac set up a furnace paid for by the crown to supply the palace with glass and mirrors. The present Neoclassical building, of granite masonry, was raised between 1770 and 1784 after a fire.
Monument
The Palacio Real de Riofrío, managed today by Patrimonio Nacional, stands in the Riofrío enclave, within the territory of the Real Sitio de San Ildefonso, eleven kilometres from the town of San Ildefonso. Isabel de Farnesio had it built in 1751, square in plan and three storeys high, to a design by the Italian architect Virgilio Rabaglio, with exterior decoration by Pedro Sermini, in the image of the Palacio Real de Madrid. It is surrounded by a forest of 625 hectares with fallow deer and red deer, and the monarchs used it almost exclusively for hunting; only Francisco de Asís de Borbón and Alfonso XII lived in it temporarily. Inside, the Hunting Museum, the ceremonial staircase, the chapel and its collection of paintings, tapestries and furniture stand out; it has been open to the public since 1965.
Nature
The palace stands in the middle of an enclosed woodland of 625 hectares, once reserved for royal hunting, through which fallow deer and red deer still move freely among holm oaks and ash trees on the northern side of the Guadarrama.
Historical milestone
The Real Sitio was born around a small farm and hermitage that the Catholic Monarchs handed over in 1477 to the Hieronymite monks of El Parral; from that farm of San Ildefonso come both the municipality's place name and the popular name of La Granja.
Food and drink
A variety of very large-grained bean, Phaseolus coccineus, grown in the market gardens of the Real Sitio de San Ildefonso, in the Sierra de Guadarrama, and believed to have been brought from America in the early 18th century; according to tradition, Isabel de Farnesio, wife of Philip V, first used it to feed the pheasants in the gardens, before it was used as fodder and, finally, as human food. The traditional dish -judiones slow-cooked with pig's ear, morcilla and chorizo from Cantimpalos- was first served with its own recipe by Tomás Urrialde on 15 October 1955, before the Cofradía de los 12 Apóstoles; every 25 August, the feast day of San Luis, a festival is held in its honour. It should not be confused with the faba de la Granja, used in Asturian fabada.
Food and drink
During the August festivities the Real Sitio cooks a communal bean stew in monumental cauldrons to share out among locals and visitors, a collective meal that has made the local pulse the municipality's festive symbol.