Spain - Escorial, Valle de Los Caidos

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The Escorial, the official court of the Spanish Kings ... whose remains are now settled in marble sepulchers in a "Pantheon of Kings". Philip II was the force behind the complex, hiring an Italian architect (...where else would they come from...?) who had worked on St. Peter's in Rome. The end result: a royal complex grander in scope and imagination than the quite mundane though outwardly flashy French idea of royal grandeur at Versailles. Philip II ruled over... territories in Europe and the Americas of a size greater than Rome's and surpassed later only by that of the British Empire.

Later, on to the "Valle de Los Caidos" a monument built on Franco's orders to honor the Civil War dead of both sides. Hewn into the mountain side is a basilica the size of St. Peter's. Though Franco won that war, Spain's freely elected governments of late are among the most liberal in Europe as are the Spanish themselves....or should that be a designation reserved just for the Catalans?


April 1994

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Spain - Escorial, Valle de Los Caidos