El Valle de los Caídos y El Escorial

First things first... isn´t this picture funny? Lauren and I laughed and laughed about how short she is and how tall I am. Ok, secondly...

This is the front view of the memorial at Valle de los Caídos, or Valley of the Fallen. It was built by Franco and dedicated to the fallen soldiers of the Spanish Civil War. All the bodies were moved here in the late 50s and entombed behind 2 chapels inside. The cathedral goes through the mountain and ends in a monastery going out the back. This monastery was used as a home for orphan boys from the war. This entire monument is seen by most people as a relic of Franco´s dictatorship and therefore is very controversial here. It was built by 25 k Spanish republican prisoners of war, many of whom died or were injured. Apparently Franco claimed they were atoning for their sins. Every November 20, the day Franco died, was celebrated by rallies at the monument by his supporters until last year when it was made illegal. They have very tight security here because many people would want to destroy it.

Franco was buried here following his death even though he had requested to be buried in Madrid. An interesting story, though: the dome over the altar piece (picture below) is a mosaic including a bunch of people who are supposedly important folks hangin out with JC in heaven. Franco had himself put into this group with a bunch of saints and kings and the like. Interesting...

The inside of the dome with the altar and these super scary hooded angels of death gaurding the souls of the entombed soldiers make it very dreary and imposing. I suppose all Catholic churches can be described as this but each one seems newly daunting to me. Behind the chapels to the sides of the main altar you can see the sealed entrances to the crypts. This is all deliciously creepy. In the chapels it reads "¡Caídos por Dios y por España!" which means "Fallen for God and for Spain!" This is Franco´s outstanding, anti-communist, pro-nationalist sentiment that he commissioned personally.

After a morning here we went to the town right nearby, San Lorenzo de El Escorial. King Felipe II promised God a beautiful monastery if He granted them a victory against those Protestant losers in an important battle. They were victorious on Saint Lawrence´s Day which is why Felipe dedicated the monastery to him. For those of you unfamilar with Catholic saints (what are you learning in school?) he´s the one who was roasted to death on a grill. The layout of the building is actually a grill shape (with the courtyards separating the halls) because of this, with the Cathedral as the handle. The symbol for the monastery is a grill as well.

It is in the cathedral here that I decided to visit as many Catholic cathedrals in my life as possible. Every time I enter one I get the chills and have to hold myself back from crying. They are all so different, too, because of different styles varying by time period and country. I have heard of some gorgeous cathedrals all over Spain and I can´t wait to see more traveling in the coming months.