[Please note that I was able to visit this beautiful place again in 2006,
and have a new page to celebrate the hike I was able to do then at this link.]
After an hour and a half on a comfortable commuter train, I walked uphill to the monastery and its
village, it was about 7 PM and the monument was closed to visitors (although it is still a working monastery besides being a magnificent museum). But I felt the need to hike uphill, in the cool of
evening, through some piney woods. My need was fulfilled very nicely.
On the way up toward the monastery, I was struck by the beauty of the weeds and the trees along the path:
It was a good climb just to reach the monastery itself:
The monastery was a massive structure, ringed along a wide flat plaza by matching buildings behind me as a took this shot:
But the idea was to hike woods, so I looked for and soon found a path up:
One of the things that made this hike different was the monastery striking occasional arresting poses between the trees as I headed up:
That is a lake in the background, and beyond the ridge on the other side of the lake lies Madrid. But, onward and upward:
After a considerable time and just under a 1,000 feet of elevation gain, I made it over the first ridge, and met some friendly and curious natives:
One tried to lure me behind a tree with her, but I passed politely and hoped I would not be pursued:
I was delighted to find a creek, and followed it uphill:
A few minutes later, I found one of the sources of the city water supply, a little dam and pipehouse through which water happily gurgled on its way to town:
It was tempting to keep going uphill, but one and a half hours had passed, and there were a total of exactly three hours between my arrival and the last train back to Madrid. So, I found a slightly different way back with good occasional views of the monastery on the way down:
Twenty minutes before train time I was having a Diet Coke in the train station. It was a very good evening. But I was ready for sitting quietly and riding for an hour and a half.
