A Day in El Escorial and Ávila
I thought I was strangely well rested when I woke up before my alarm, but after a few minutes of lying in bed with my eyes closed, it occurred to me that I forgot to set it. As soon as I saw the time, I darted out of bed. I crammed all my belongings in my backpack and ran out to find a café where I could buy a small pastry to go. Armed with an apple and a slice of banana bread, I then made my way to the Silla de Felipe II, a lookout over the Escorial about thirty to forty minutes from the city centre. That, at any rate, was the time it took me in my frantic state. El Escorial looked small but majestic from the lookout, dwarfed by the mountain on whose slopes the city stands, and snow still capped the even taller mountains on the distant right.