El Escorial

Last Friday was our excursion to El Escorial, a royal palace and monastery. Unfortunately we couldn't take pictures inside because that's where all the good stuff is, but I have a few.

The site includes the royal residence, a monastery, a university, a library, and a church that are all essentially connected. The location of almost all aspects of the building hold some sort of symbolism. One of the earlier stages of the tour took us through halls filled with beautiful oil paintings of some of the most famous Biblical stories. One room in particular held about 12 massive paintings, each about 11 ft. tall, that our tour guide were "dismissed" from their original purpose for not being clear enough. At the momet I didn't understand because all of them were incredibly detailed and beautiful, but when we walked into the church later in the tour I understood why.

After walking past rows and rows of pews and underneath a giant granite dome in the center of the ceiling, we came to the main altar of the church. The back wall held 8 or 9 of the massive paintings, arranged in 3 tiers depicting the birth, crucifixion, and resurrection of Jesus. On either sides of the altar there were golden statues of the kings and queens watching mass. It was really breathtaking.

As beautiful as the church was, the best part of the tour was the library. It's one long room with an arched ceiling covered in beautiful fresco paintings. Each section of the painted ceiling was dedicated to a certain discipline or science, and even their order was specifically planned. We entered through the side of the library that is conected to the university, so the first science depicted was philosophy, followed by grammar, etc. As we walked through towards the side the connects to the convent, the sciences changed into music, geometry, astronomy and finally theology. I could have easily spent 30 minutes just staring up at the ceiling.

That was essentially the end of the tour. But good news! Our lunch was cooked this time around!

On a totally unrelated note, yesterday my friend Christie staged an impromptu performance of The Vagina Monologues here at the Fundación! A group of 7 of us performed the collection of interviews that make up the Monologues for about 40 of our fellow Funders. It was amazing!! I had seen it once before but never performed, and it was so much fun. I hope to have the chance to be a part of the Monologues again in the future. Thanks Christie!