114. El Escorial

On Friday the three musketeers (Brian, Somchai and Jose) headed west to Avila province, stopping first at El Escorial. Escorial is Spanish for slag heap, as the incredibly huge building was built on a slag heap (leftover crap from iron mining) in a desolate stretch of terrain. The location, and every other detail of the immense project, was chosen by King Felipe II, at the time the richest and most powerful man in the world. And why did he choose such a horrible location? Because he was crazy in a religious nut sort of way. He was king of Spain and Portugal, the Holy Roman Emperor controlling most of Germany, and the Emperor of Austria and occupied Holland, Belgium and Latin America. He ruled this vast empire from this spookily austere complex in the middle of nowhere. It took a couple decades to build, and was conceived as a palace, monastery, convent and religious school all wrapped up in one. Any money left over from building this place went to his perpetual wars conducted in his singlehanded attempt to wipe out Protestantism throughout Europe, which ended up being a gigantic waste of life and money.