Toledo

We left Madrid and visited Valle de los Caidos, the Valley of the Fallen. It was without a doubt one of the creepiest places I have ever been. One of our friends who had been there, told us it reminded him of the dementors from Harry Potter and he could not have been more right. The place literally sucked the life and happiness out of you and was covered with statues of cloaked figures. The monument was a large basilica and cross built as a testimony to Franco, a terrible dictator during WWII. It was built by his prisoners and hundreds of thousands of people died while building it. There were priests there that were preparing for mass, obviously followers of Franco. There was a large group of people gathering for mass within the basilica and it was so disturbing. They were clearly there to pay tribute to this horrible man and it felt so incredible wrong. It was too disturbing to be in there long, so we left. Our directors did not even enter with us because they hate it so much, but I am glad that they felt we needed to be educated about it.
After leaving the monument, we went to a much happier place, El Escorial. El Escorial is the summer palace of the kings and queens of Spain. The palace dates back as far as the 1100s. King Felipe II built the palace as his summer palace to escape the troubles of Madrid.
After visiting El Escorial we checked in to our hotel in Toledo. We went on a walking tour of Toledo and visited the various churches and cathedrals. Toledo is an absolutely beautiful city and brings a whole new meaning to “holy Toledo!”

The pictures are taken at a famous viewing point in Toledo. Our friends Nate, on the left, and Randal on the right are with us.