El Escorial Monastery and Palace

El Escorial was built between 1563 and 1584 for Philip II, first under Juan Bautista de Toledo and then Juan de Herrera, whose stripped, unornamented style takes its name from this building. The result is a grey granite rectangle of courtyards, colder and plainer than almost anything else Spanish royalty put up. Inside are a domed basilica, royal apartments of surprising modesty, a picture collection, and a library whose barrel vault is frescoed with the liberal arts and whose books face outwards, gilded edges to the room. Beneath the basilica, a small octagonal chamber of dark marble and gilt holds the tombs of Spanish monarchs. The mountains rise directly behind.

What you actually see

• The library - a frescoed barrel vault above shelves of books turned fore-edge outwards.
• The basilica - a domed church on a Greek cross plan at the centre of the complex.
• The royal pantheon - an octagonal marble chamber of tombs below the high altar.
• The courtyards - repeating granite facades that show Herrera's deliberately plain manner.

When to go

Spring and early autumn are best. The town sits around a thousand metres against the Sierra de Guadarrama, so winter visits mean cold stone rooms and short daylight, while August brings Madrid day-trippers in numbers. Weekday mornings are calmest. Allow more time than the ticket suggests, because the route through the complex is long.

Honest expectations

It is enormous and relentlessly grey, and visitors expecting gilded palace rooms often find the austerity flat. The circuit is long, cold in the stone galleries, and bottlenecks badly on the narrow pantheon staircase. Photography is restricted in several rooms. Weekends fill with families from Madrid, and the town's restaurants price accordingly.

Nearby

The Valle de los Caidos hillside road, Guadarrama hiking trails and the walled town of Avila.