Logbook · 5 places

What to see and do in El Escorial

What to see and do in El Escorial (Cuenca del Guadarrama, Madrid): 5 places across monuments, nature, activities and curiosities, with a photo and a Google Maps location.

1 Villages · 3 Monuments · 1 Historical milestones

How far each place is from the centre of El Escorial

Towns near El Escorial

Spain › Community of Madrid › Cuenca del Guadarrama › El Escorial

What to see and do in El Escorial

El Escorial
Village
El Escorial is a town in Madrid, with about 17,200 inhabitants, at the foot of Mount Abantos, on the southern slope of the Sierra de Guadarrama, known as El Escorial de Abajo. Its origins go back to the 11th and 12th centuries, when the conquest of Toledo allowed this slope to be repopulated with Basque-Navarrese, Leonese and Burgos people; the territory belonged to the sexmo of Casarrubios, dependent on Segovia. In 1561 Philip II decided to build a monastery here in honour of Saint Lawrence, and while it was being built he had the church of San Bernabé raised, a bien de interés cultural (Spain's highest level of heritage protection) since 1983; the town received the title of villa in 1565. For resisting the French in the War of Independence, Ferdinand VII gave it the title of «Leal» in 1815. Its Real Sitio has been a World Heritage Site since 1984.
Church of San Bernabé
Monument
Designed by Francisco de Mora and built between 1594 and 1597 under the direction of fray Antonio de Villacastín, it was inaugurated on 21 September 1595. It is one of the earliest examples of the Herrerian style and a Monumento Histórico-Artístico (Spain's heritage designation in force between 1931 and 1985) since 1983.
La Granjilla de La Fresneda
Monument
La Granjilla de La Fresneda, historically known as the parque de La Fresneda, is a pleasure house that Juan Bautista de Toledo designed for Philip II on the grounds of the former village of La Fresneda, in the municipality of El Escorial, as an enclosed hunting reserve for the monarch and the Hieronymite monks of the monastery. It was built between 1561 and 1569 and includes, on a 148-hectare estate, a Herrerian palace surrounded by Renaissance gardens with a concept similar to that of Madrid's Casa de Campo, with five royal ponds fed from the río Aulencia and overseen by the Dutchman Petre Janson, as well as a convent and the church of San Juan Bautista. Declared a bien de interés cultural (Spain's highest level of heritage protection), it is part of the Ruta Imperial that runs through the places linked to Philip II as far as El Escorial.
Fortified house of El Campillo
Monument
With origins in the 12th century, in the Segovian sexmo of Casarrubios, this late-medieval palatial residence of granite masonry served as a hunting lodge for the House of Trastámara. Philip II bought the sites of Campillo and Monasterio from Bernardino de Cárdenas and incorporated them into the vast grounds of the Real Sitio de El Escorial from 1561 onward, where farmland and pasture were also worked to supply the monastery; the tower was remodelled in the 16th century by Francisco de Mora to bring it into the Escorial estate. There is no firm evidence of its origin, though it may have been commissioned by Henry IV of Castile, who gave it its fortified appearance. Figures such as Rodrigo Manrique and Isabella I of Castile passed through it. Today it is run by a private company as a conference centre.
The separation of the two Escorials
Historical milestone
The settlement grown up beside the monastery was constituted as its own municipality in 1836 under the name of San Lorenzo de El Escorial, splitting off from the old village. Since then they are popularly distinguished as El Escorial de Abajo and El Escorial de Arriba.