ESCORIAL, Visit

Visiting the entire Escorial can take a whole day if you want to see all the historical areas, apartments, sacred buildings, and rich museums; but if you only have a little bit of time you should limit your tour to the church and its immediate surroundings.

To visit the interior, go along the left side of the building. Your tour begins with the long Hall of Battles, made by Italian painters using ancient ornamental motifs and depicting two victorious battles along the walls.

From here move on to the Summer Palace, which is now home to some magnificent museums. The first floor houses an excellent Museo de Pintura/Art Gallery with religious paintings from the Venetian school (Titian, Veronese, Tintoretto), Flemish school (from the great painters of the 1400s up to Rubens and Van Dyck), and of course the Spanish school with paintings by Ribera, Alonso Cano, and Zurbaràn.

On the next floor down you can see the  Museo de Arquitectura/Architectural Museum with its projects and documents on Escorial's history; the museum also has the most important and controversial painting in the entire complex....