El Escorial & Valle de los Caídos

For one of the program’s day trips, the group will visit San Lorenzo de El Escorial, a quaint town where a monastery and palace, also named San Lorenzo de El Escorial, are located.

King Felipe II had the grand structure built to commemorate the 1557 Spanish victory at the Battle of St. Quentin against Henry II of France.  The Royal Pantheon at El Escorial is the burial site for most of the Spanish royalty for the last five centuries.

Nearby, the group travels to el Valle de los Caídos, built by dictator Francisco Franco as a monument to honor and bury those who fell during the Spanish Civil War.  The monument remains controversial particularly due to the fact that was built in large part by Republican political prisoners who worked as forced prison labour. Between 1959 and 1983, the crypt housed almost 34,000 dead bodies – of which 12,410 were unidentified – from graves and cemeteries throughout Spain. The dictator Franco was buried there for 44 years.

Law 20/2022 changes the name of the monument, which is now entitled the Valle de Cuelgamuros.