I'm still in Sevilla, but I found some internet again to update you guys! I have a lot to add since I missed 2 weeks of updates.
Let's see, where did I leave off?
I got back from Las Fallas on a Saturday night, so my Sunday was free. Luckily, I'd heard that Matt the Mellophone was in town for the weekend! Matt is studying abroad in Sweden, but he decided to come visit Madrid and stay with Colin, yay! It was really great to see someone else from U of I in Spain. So we all decided to explore El Escorial, an old monastery/palace in another part of town.
I got a lot of pictures of the outside and a few of the gardens from afar, since pictures weren't really allowed inside. Ahem, but I did manage to get a few, ahem. Anyway, this place was huge! The Cathedral was the most impressive part. I've only seen churches that big in movies or video games, never real life.
The rest of El Escorial was filled with paintings, antique furniture, and different exhibits about the construction. Oh yeah, and...a mausoleum?! I couldn't believe the kings of Spain lived here with all the former kings of Spain just resting in peace in the basement, more or less!! There were a heck of a lot of tombs and corridors to other tombs. We found one room with a huge circular tomb with 60 different spaces for people to be buried, and I believe 47 of them were...ummm, occupied. (This is so weird to talk about...) The sad part was, it was in a room that was entirely dedicated to the burials of the royal children who never made it past puberty :( It was really interesting, but really morbid at the same time. Jesus H, if I could barely handle this, how am I gonna handle the crypts in Palermo!?!
Um, let's move away from the crypts... The rest of El Escorial was beautiful. We found a
gorgeous painted ceiling in one part and snuck some pictures :o)
It took a long time to tour the whole place because it was so big. My favorite part was at the end when we saw the library!!! The books were all handwritten in latin, in calligraphy!! If you know me well, you know I love books and I love writing in calligraphy so this was pretty much heaven on earth for me :) They even had one book of hymnals, and all the scores were handwritten in calligraphy; it was just the coolest thing. The books were all hand-bound too, and all the illustrations were drawn one-by-one. They were just beautiful. I really didn't want to leave, but we had missed lunch and it was already 4, so we left after that.
I'll be back one day to explore the gardens since we didn't get to. Recently, I've been finding out that I'm kind of in love with European gardens. Kruse and I explored this garden in Sevilla the other day and I just would not shut up about how cool it was...woops. The picture here is of the gardens in Sevilla because they are so gorgeous and I just had to share a picture! I've been there twice and am considering visiting again, if I have time. Entrance is free for me because I'm a student so I can just visit whenever I want.
Anyway, I'm making a shopping list of gardens I want to see before I go back to the US, and I'm gonna try to work on being a little less awed when I visit, but we'll see how that goes ;)
See you all later!
Ariel
Let's see, where did I leave off?
I got back from Las Fallas on a Saturday night, so my Sunday was free. Luckily, I'd heard that Matt the Mellophone was in town for the weekend! Matt is studying abroad in Sweden, but he decided to come visit Madrid and stay with Colin, yay! It was really great to see someone else from U of I in Spain. So we all decided to explore El Escorial, an old monastery/palace in another part of town.I got a lot of pictures of the outside and a few of the gardens from afar, since pictures weren't really allowed inside. Ahem, but I did manage to get a few, ahem. Anyway, this place was huge! The Cathedral was the most impressive part. I've only seen churches that big in movies or video games, never real life.
The rest of El Escorial was filled with paintings, antique furniture, and different exhibits about the construction. Oh yeah, and...a mausoleum?! I couldn't believe the kings of Spain lived here with all the former kings of Spain just resting in peace in the basement, more or less!! There were a heck of a lot of tombs and corridors to other tombs. We found one room with a huge circular tomb with 60 different spaces for people to be buried, and I believe 47 of them were...ummm, occupied. (This is so weird to talk about...) The sad part was, it was in a room that was entirely dedicated to the burials of the royal children who never made it past puberty :( It was really interesting, but really morbid at the same time. Jesus H, if I could barely handle this, how am I gonna handle the crypts in Palermo!?!
Um, let's move away from the crypts... The rest of El Escorial was beautiful. We found a
gorgeous painted ceiling in one part and snuck some pictures :o)It took a long time to tour the whole place because it was so big. My favorite part was at the end when we saw the library!!! The books were all handwritten in latin, in calligraphy!! If you know me well, you know I love books and I love writing in calligraphy so this was pretty much heaven on earth for me :) They even had one book of hymnals, and all the scores were handwritten in calligraphy; it was just the coolest thing. The books were all hand-bound too, and all the illustrations were drawn one-by-one. They were just beautiful. I really didn't want to leave, but we had missed lunch and it was already 4, so we left after that.
I'll be back one day to explore the gardens since we didn't get to. Recently, I've been finding out that I'm kind of in love with European gardens. Kruse and I explored this garden in Sevilla the other day and I just would not shut up about how cool it was...woops. The picture here is of the gardens in Sevilla because they are so gorgeous and I just had to share a picture! I've been there twice and am considering visiting again, if I have time. Entrance is free for me because I'm a student so I can just visit whenever I want.Anyway, I'm making a shopping list of gardens I want to see before I go back to the US, and I'm gonna try to work on being a little less awed when I visit, but we'll see how that goes ;)
See you all later!
Ariel
No comments:
Post a Comment