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Monasterio de El Paular Review

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Monasterio de El Paular

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Phone: 91/869-1425

Category: Religious Sites
Location: Monasterio de El Paular and Lozoya Valley

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Fodor's Review:

The highlight of this excursion is the Monasterio de El Paular, built by King Juan I in 1390 and the first Carthusian monastery in Castile. It was plundered five centuries later with the Disentailment of 1836, when the religious organizations' art treasures were taken by the state and its land and buildings auctioned. The state repurchased the monastery (at a much higher price) in two phases, one in 1874 and the other one in 1936, right before the beginning of the civil war. The winner of this last conflict, Francisco Franco, himself a devout Catholic, decided in 1948 to have a Benedictine monastery in Madrid, and nine years later (and 119 years after the last Carthusian left the building) the first monks arrived in El Paular. Nowadays fewer than a dozen Benedictine monks still live here, living and praying exactly as their predecessors did centuries ago. Tours (in Spanish only and conducted by one of the monks) are given Monday-Saturday at noon, 1, and 5 (on Thursday there's no 5 PM tour); Sunday tours are at 1, 4, and 5, October to April, and at 1, 5, and 6, May to September. If you happen to get here on a Sunday, don't miss the noon Mass. You'll have the privilege of listening to the monks' Gregorian chants.

Attached to the monastery, the Sheraton Santa María de El Paular (91/869-1011. www.hotelsantamariapaular.com) is a cozy mountain hotel run by the same Westin chain that owns Madrid's Palace Hotel. The hotel has two good restaurants: Dom Lope, open daily and specializing in traditional Spanish food, and Trastámara, open weekends at lunch for great roasted lamb and suckling pig.

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