Taking a walk through San Lorenzo de El Escorial is one of the most wonderful sensations that the visitor can experience. The streets and plazas, flooded with light and colour, offer open spaces where trees and fountains intermingle and attract the attention of the visitor.

Here magnificent architectonic representations of the 16th and 18th centuries are overlapped, the great majority designed and planned by Juan de Herrera and Juan de Villanueva, with later constructions of great architects that have contributed to the consolidation of a small and welcoming city that lives between tradition and modernity.

Three itineraries through the Historic Artistic Ensemble of San Lorenzo de El Escorial invite one to get to know the details of the city that was born of a monarch’s dream and has matured with the dreams of its inhabitants.

The first of them invites you to see the San Lorenzo de El Escorial of the 16th century, moment in which the Monastery and its bordering premises are constructed, which give expression to the dreams of Felipe II. Sobriety and magnificence in the forms characterize this moment in which the style called “Herrerian” is defined.

The second itinerary gives you the opportunity to know the San Lorenzo de El Escorial of the 18th century, the direct result of the decision of Carlos III to allow the construction of buildings in what is today the city’s Old Quarter. It is the courtesan city where the

recreational and leisure areas arise, and gained their greatest vitality during the Royal Visits.

The third itinerary suggests a walk from the Bus Station to the Monastery. The most interesting tourist attractions of the city and the practical inexistence of architectonic barriers have been taken into account in its design, to promote in San Lorenzo de El Escorial Tourism for everyone.

We are sure that these proposals will be extremely interesting in getting to know in depth this unique environment.