There’re a lot of holidays in Spain.
We’ve just come off one, in fact. Sampere was shut yesterday as it was the dia de la Immaculada Concepcion so I decided to head for the campo (countryside) and do a bit of walking.
I took the train to El Escorial, which is fast becoming my favourite place near Madrid for return visits. The town itself is pleasant enough, with a smattering of pretty squares and leafy side streets.
But there are two reasons why anyone who visits Madrid must come here – the amazing monastery, where the kings an queens of Spain are entombed along with their families, and the easy access to stunning countryside.
San Lorenzo de El Escorial, on a grey December afternoon
San Lorenzo de Escorial was built by Felipe II in the late 1500s as a Catholic response to the emerging protestantism at the time. Situated about 45k from Madrid and one hour on the local cercania train, it functions as a monastery, royal palace, museum, and school.
I had already been to the monastery with the school and had woken up that morning with “ganas de” go hillwalking…so after asking a woman in the oficina de tourismo the best way to get to the campo, I headed out of the town and into the hills.
It turned out to be an amazing couple of hours, as within
Nice views from the hills surrounding El Escorial
A creepy looking tree (on the left)
about half-an-hour’s walking, I found myself completely alone with incredible views of a forested valley stretching out for miles below. The towers of the monastery became ever more distant as I climbed the hills. And as the light began to fade, the clouds lifted to reveal the snow-capped peaks of the Sierra de Guadalajara.
This would be a great place to shoot a Blair Witch Project-style film, as there is something slightly eery about the countryside around here, with the brown and orange leaves that remain on the trees at this time of year on the point of death and large granite boulders appearing out of nowhere.
Anyway, I was talking about holidays… Yes there are a lot of them in Spain, and they all have their own fairly colourful name. There is Dia de la Hispanidad (Columbus Day) on October 12, Dia de la Constitucion on December 6 and San Pedro and San Paulo on June 29, to name but three.
Why don’t we Brits come up with more holiday names, instead of calling them “bank holidays”? (There can be few more joyless names for a holiday than “bank”, and choosing a name on the basis that, oh right, banks are gonna be shut then, displays a fairly shocking lack of imagination).
“High Tea Day”, anyone? “Squirrel Day”? “Jimmy Saville Day?” Maybe not..
