Yuste Monastery

Charles V ruled an empire across Europe and the Americas and gave it up in 1556, dividing it between his son Philip and his brother Ferdinand, and retired to this Hieronymite monastery in the wooded La Vera valley, where a small palace had been built onto the church for him. He lived there for about two years with a reduced household, gout-ridden and preoccupied with clocks, and died in September 1558. The rooms are preserved: a bedroom with a door opening directly onto the church so he could hear mass from bed, austere apartments, and a terrace over a pool and garden. Titian's Gloria hung here in his lifetime. The monastery buildings around it were burned in the Peninsular War and rebuilt.

What you actually see

• The imperial apartments - the rooms Charles V occupied in his last years.
• The church door - an opening from his bedroom to hear mass from bed.
• The terrace and pool - the garden he had built below his rooms.
• The cloisters - Gothic and Renaissance courts rebuilt after 1809.

When to go

March to June and September to November; La Vera is green and mild in spring, and the cherry blossom in the neighbouring Jerte valley falls in late March. Summer is hot, and the site closes on Mondays.

Honest expectations

The apartments are modest and the visit takes under two hours. Much of the monastery is nineteenth-century rebuilding after the Peninsular War fire. The Titian that hung here is in the Prado.

Nearby

Cuacos de Yuste village is alongside; the Jerte valley and Garganta de los Infiernos lie north.