Being Historical

A good bit of our class here is devoted to history, so last weekend and this weekend we've taken field trips to places associated with the royal history of Spain. First stop was El Escorial, a town north of Madrid with a monastery that was huge because the king built it to live there. It was very plain and austere compared to other royal abodes.

We also went to the Prado both last week and this week, each time focusing on a different era. We got to see the famous Las Meninas of course, and a lot of Goya as well. This is this front of the Prado with a statue of Velázquez (he's kind of a big deal here), although this part is not used as the entrance anymore.

Yesterday we took a walking tour around the Paseo del Prado and saw some more historical sites, such as the botanical gardens (not so great in the autumn...) and the Puerta de Alcalá, aka Madrid's Arc de Triomphe:

Lastly, we took a tour of the Palacio Real, one of many royal palaces constructed over the years by the kings of Spain. It definitely reminded me a lot of Versailles, but it's smaller and it seemed like more attention was paid to each room instead of someone throwing a bunch of gold and fabric everywhere just because they can. There was one room whose walls were covered entirely in porcelain! All the little details of every wall and piece of furniture were incredible. We unfortunately weren't allowed to take pictures inside, but here you can see the outside:

In other news, I will be travelling to Rome for the long weekend that we have at the end of October, which is super exciting because that's when my birthday is! I cannot wait for the food.... If anyone has any suggestions as to what to do there let me know!