Cities of Castile

A half-day local guide, well-educated and specially-trained on the history and culture of Madrid and its surroundings, will accompany your group.

View world-famous paintings by El Greco, Goya, and Velázquez, and much. much more, at the magnificent Museo del Prado.

Enjoy the ride to the "Town of Stones and Saints," which stands on an abrupt spur above the Adaja River, in the middle of a windswept plateau overlooked by the dramatic Sierra de Gredos.

Enter through one of the nine gates in the intact medieval walls, which date back to 1090. "Ávila of the Knights" was a city of importance in the Middle Ages, with its many Romanesque churches, and a great cathedral whose castellated apse was also a bastion of the city walls. Two of Christianity's greatest mystics, St. Teresa of Ávila and St. John of the Cross, lived there in the 1500s.

Pause at a small hilltop shrine located a mile from Ávila. Back in 1522, the future Saint Teresa of Ávila, at the age of seven, was caught there by her uncle as she was running away with her equally young brother to seek martyrdom at a battle waged against the Moors. The site of Los Cuatro Postes affords one of the best panoramic views of Ávila's walled city.

Continue to an ancient university city celebrated in verse by the poet Miguel de Unamuno. Salamanca remains a Spanish Renaissance showpiece as it rises from the banks of the Tormes River, adorned with turrets and spires, historic houses and golden sandstone walls. Welcome to one of Spain's most beautiful cities!

Walk through the core of the campus of the eminent Universidad de Salamanca. Founded in 1218 by King Alfonso IX of Léon, it's Spain's oldest university and Europe's third oldest in continuous operation.

See the 15th-century and 16th-century buildings and patios (courtyards) of the Escuelas Mayores and Escuelas Menores, as well as the Archbishop Fonseca College, built in 1538 with an arcaded courtyard known for its medallions of Uomini Famosi (famous men).

You will visit the Catedral Vieja, a most interesting example of Spanish Romanesque architecture that dates back to the 12th-century.

Enter the Nueva Catedral, whose architecture combines Gothic and Baroque features as it was built from the 16th to the 18th centuries.

At the palatial religious retreat of King Philip II, El Escorial, you will see the Royal Pantheon where the kings are buried, the Crypt of the Royal Children, the Apartments of King Philip, the Basilica with Titian's fresco depicting the martyrdom of St. Lawrence, and the lavish library, which contains 40,000 rare manuscripts, including the diary of St. Teresa of Ávila.

Stop at the Valle de los Caídos, a wooded belvedere nestled in the Guadarrama Mountains that features the world's largest monumental cross. It's also the site of an underground basilica that General Franco ordered carved inside a hill of solid granite by prisoners of war from the Republican side: it houses his tomb and was intended as a monument to Fascism. Make your way across the vast esplanade for a panoramic view of valleys and mountains.

Continue over the sierras on your way to Spain's capital city.