National Heritage will open all its Royal Sites, from April 6 to 9, in Madrid, so this Holy Week it will be possible to visit the Royal Palaces of Madrid, Aranjuez and El Pardo, as well as the Monastery of San Lorenzo de El Escorial, in 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.
In addition, it expands its cultural offer for this Holy Week with the lighting of the monumental fountains of the Royal Palace of La Granja de San Ildefonso, in Segovia.
Aranjuez invites, on the banks of the Tagus River, to long walks with cultural, artistic and gastronomic stops. Its gardens are aesthetic spaces, plant museums, inserted in the artistic and historical heritage of the city.
The Cultural Landscape of Aranjuez, World Heritage by UNESCO since 2001, is the result of the combination of landscape, architectural and artistic works from various periods of Spanish History, mainly from the 18th century. It is an example of the relationship between human beings and nature through its farms and rural architecture. This enclave represents a unique model of balance between technique and aesthetics in the environment, very typical of the Enlightenment.
At the end of the 15th century, Aranjuez was designated a Royal Site by the Catholic Monarchs. Although it was the kings of the House of Austria who began the construction of palaces and gardens. Aranjuez reached its moment of greatest splendor as a vacation center for the itinerant Court during the reigns of Carlos III and Carlos IV, a time when the Royal Palace acquired the shape we have today.
The Royal Palace of Madrid is the largest in Western Europe and one of the largest in the world. Its more than 135,000 square meters and 3,418 rooms have witnessed centuries of Spanish history. It is one of the few official residences of Heads of State that is open to the public. Almost 2 million visitors come every year to discover its corners, its works of art and its unique treasures in the world.
It dates from the 18th century but in reality it sits on the site of the old Alcázar of Madrid, a medieval fortress converted into a palace and that Felipe II converted from 1561 into the official residence of the kings of Spain.
The Alcázar, decorated with great works of art from the Spanish Golden Age, was destroyed by fire on Christmas Eve 1734. Legend has it that members of the court of Philip V, of French origin, caused the fire in order to build a Palace of French or Versailles style. But it is about that, a legend.
It is under the reign of Carlos III that the Royal Palace of Madrid lives its greatest Italian-style splendor with the arrival of the most famous painters at that time for the decoration of his residence: the Venetian Giambattista Tiepolo and the German, of Roman formation , Antonio Rafael Mengs, his first chamber painter. The succession of frescoes painted by these masters in the main rooms constitutes one of the most important characteristics of this residence where both Carlos III and his son Carlos IV lived only eight weeks a year: in December, Easter and part of July. Since the rest of the year they lived in the other Palaces of the Crown: El Escorial, Aranjuez and La Granja.
