My wife and I will be arriving in Madrid by rail
at the Atoche station. What would be the best way
to reach San Lorenzo del Escorial? We've been lucky enough to be given a 7 day stay at a beautiful villa very near the monastery.

We really don't want to rent a car unless necessary.

We will also be making at least a couple of trips
back to Madrid during that time.

gls858

From Atocha, there are trains to El Escorial every 30 minutes (more or less). The trip takes about one hour.

Thanks for the info. I guess this would be one of
the regional RENFE trains? I tried to find info
on the RENFE site but my Spanish skills are lacking :-) I'll do some more research any links would be helpful.

gls858

The RENFE site is hard to use. The English version is very different from the Spanish version, with very little information.

Here is a link to the Cercanias page. Enter in the following:

RENFE CERCANIAS MADRID

Click Horarios
Origen Atocha
Destino El Escorial
The Date
Then Click Horarios On the line with Todas....Todas

Good Luck....

I had noticed that :-) Thanks for the link.

Thanks Arturo. That got me to a list of times for the train going to El Escorial.
After checking Google Earth (great program) it looks like the train station is a mile or two from
where I need to go. Are there taxis available once
I reach El Escorial. My destination is just a bit north of the monastery. Or would it be better to take a bus? If so, do the buses leave from Atoche as well? Thanks so much for the help.

gls858

No, the buses to El Escorial don't depart from Atocha, but from the Northwest of Madrid (Moncloa). I am not sure about taxi service in El Escorial, but I would bet that it won't be difficult to catch one or call for one at the station. And I think that it'll be easier and cheaper to do that ride than Atocha to Moncloa in Madrid.

Thanks. I think you convinced me to find a way from the train station in El Escorial. I Don't really relish the idea of lugging the bags on the Metro. I think I read elsewhere on this form that Moncloa is closed June to Sept for renovation.

gls858

Yes in you are in Atocha the best way to go to San Lorenzo de El Escorial is by train. It should take about an hour. Then you have to take a bus to the Monastery.

Coincidentally, JUST TODAY I went to the Monastery of San Lorenzo de El Escorial - spent the entire morning there. Wow, what a place! We went by car and the trip took just under an hour. We even parked just along the street facing the main front (although that's not the entrance - but it is the EXIT). We pulled in, found a place easily, and walked into the Monastery. When we came back we had a 48 Euro fine on the window. It was ONLY THEN did we see PARKING METERS. Unfortunately when we parked we apparently parked between two parking meters and there were no signs or blue or green lines on the parking spaces so it never crossed our minds that we'd have to pay to park. OOPS!

I have to say, on the return trip I was surprised with the lack of signage TO MADRID upon leaving El Escorial on the small roads. Lots of signs to Guadarrama - which was the direction we took (or was it Guadalajara??) - and only when we neared the main highway A-6 did we see a tiny sign TO MADRID (there was construction/obras) at the interchange getting onto A-6. I said to the driver, "Imagine a foreigner driving this route back to Madrid! He wouldn't know WHICH way to go because NO SIGNS say "TO MADRID"!!"

Saludos, MadridMan

Hello MadridMan. I have a question, did you get your Spanish license yet, or are you driving with the US license + internatinal permit?

When I arrived to Spain from the US at first I used my US license and drove like a tourist, but at the end I had to get the Spanish "Permiso de Conducción".

Estopa1, I'm always the passenger. I haven't driven yet since arriving in Spain at the end of December 2005 - because I don't have my license. (I want to get my Spain drivers license in the next year but I'm not in a hurry) I think we discussed drivers licenses for United Statesens in another thread so we shouldn't go off-topic here.

Saludos, MadridMan

How close is the Valley of the Fallen to El Escorial? My brother and his wife are visiting and my suggustion was to go everywhere by train or by bus. You can take guided tours but I don't think you need to, everything around madrid is well connected.

Estopa1,
Thanks for the info. I think we'll end up taking
a taxi. We'll be spending 7 days at El Escorial
and our accomodations are just a short walk from
the Monastery. I hope to catch a few sundowns from there. Not an early enough riser for sunrises :-)

gls858

MadridMan,
Yikes 48 euros for a parking ticket! I guess they figure they might as well make it worth their time if they're going to all the trouble to
write one Did you go to the Casita de Arribas?
I think the place we are staying is very near to
it.

gls858

gls858, that ticket was HALF the price of the parking ticket we got just the day before (actually, the same morning when we found it) in Madrid. They don't mess around with these new Parking Meters throughout Madrid (or anywhere else). It's a real money-maker for them - OBVIOUSLY! Besides, they don't even WRITE parking tickets anymore. They all have these PalmPilot-like devices where they only key in the license place number and VOILA! Instant printout ticket - spreading cheer and good-will to all. Cha-CHING!

We didn't go to La Casita de Arribas because we didn't have time. When we passed by on our way back through it was already past sunset and getting dark and the Sunday traffic back to Madrid was getting heavy.

Saludos, MadridMan

MadridMan i am amaze to hear they have not put up better signage there still. I went there in 1990 and its true very little signs going back to madrid and actually going there at that time:i park just near where you describe too but no ticket just a flat tire cost me 16 USD to fix same day.Sept 1990.

To Tim Hortons Man:

The Valley of the Fallen is about 8 miles from El Escorial. You need to take a bus or taxi to get there.

I don't think you will have time to see both places completely on the same day, but you can try. If you arrive at El Escorial at about 1000 hours, then visit the Monastery inside takes about 2-3 hours. Then you can have lunch between 1300 and 1400 hours in the town, and after that take a taxi to the Valley of the Fallen arriving there at 1500 hours. Then you can spend 3 hours to visiting the complex. The Valley closes at 1800 hours.

To gls858:

7 days at El Escorial!!! Wow. I think that is too much. In 3 days you have anough time to see everything there including the surrounding mountains, but anyway you will have a great time. Enjoy!!

A link to the Wikipedia page about El Escorial:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Escorial

Just wanted to thank everyone for the help. My wife and I just returned fronm our trip last Sat. We had a GREAT time. The info I got here helped a bunch. Thanks again.

To Estopa1: I agree 7 days at Escroial is more than enough but we got to stay at this villa for FREE for the 7 days we were there. Two days we took the bus to Madrid (a whole 6.40 euros for two tickets) and spent the day there.

http://www.villavacations.com/spain/madrid/sanlorenzo/sanlorenzo_prop.shtml

http://www.elsolvillas.com/sov_property.asp?PropertyID=708

http://www.spain-select.com/detail_villa.asp?id_villa=243

Also by staying at Escorial I managed to strike up a friendshiip will the proprietor of a small bar called El Brillante. My Spanish is poor and his English was nil but we still managed to communicate LOL.

gls858

Hello gls858,

Did you stay at that beautiful house at El Escorial? Lucky you are being there for FREE becasue I imagine it would be very expensive to spend 7 days in such a house at El Escorial. By the way did you go the Valley of the Fallen?

Are you living in the US?

Yes we stayed 7 days. The place was beautiful. We could see the Casitas del Infante from the kitchen window! Only a about one kilometer from the monastery. The only bad thing was that it was
65 steps from the street to the back door! The contact there told us that all of the houses were built by friends of Franco's. The owner of the house is an associate of my brother in law. He offered a weeks stay as a prize in a fund rasier.
My brother in law won, but couldn't go, so he gave it to us. So lucky is right!
Yes we spent an afternoon at Valle de los Caidos.
VERY impressive. It's hard to imagine what it must have cost to build something like that.

Yes,my wife and I both have lived in the US our entire lives.