El Escorial day trip from Madrid: the €14 monastery, the Valley of Cuelgamuros at €9, closed Mondays, the EU-only free afternoons and tours from €45

💡 The Short Version: The monastery is €14, open Tuesday to Sunday and closed Mondays; buy online in advance (a €0.77 booking fee applies) or at the Visitor Reception Centre. Reach it by Cercanías C-8 or bus 661 or 664 from Moncloa. The Valley of Cuelgamuros (formerly the Valley of the Fallen) is €9, also closed Mondays, and has no direct public transport from Madrid; bus 660 runs to it from San Lorenzo. The monastery has free Wednesday and Sunday afternoons for EU citizens, residents and Latin American citizens only, at the box office; everyone else pays. The Museums of Painting and Architecture reopened on 2 October and are free until 31 December 2026. Or book a tour: Escorial Monastery and the Valley of the Fallenad is from €62 for 5 hours and El Escorial and Valley’s Basilica Half Day Tourad from €45; a tour covers the Valley, which a train and bus do not (GetYourGuide).

Getting there

The monastery is in San Lorenzo de El Escorial, 2 km up the valley from the town of El Escorial. Individual visitors enter through the west façade, the Patio de los Reyes; groups, guided visits and visitors who only have a museum ticket use the north façade. The Visitor Reception Centre, with the ticket office, is at Avenida de Don Juan de Borbón y Battenberg 4, opposite the north façade.

A heritage train, the Tren de Felipe II, also runs from Madrid to San Lorenzo, with a diesel-electric locomotive and restored 1940s coaches, about 50 minutes through the Sierra de Guadarrama, on set days in 2026: 3, 4, 10, 11, 12, 17, 18, 24, 25 and 31 October; 1, 7, 8, 14, 15, 21, 22, 28 and 29 November; and 5, 6, 8 and 12 December. Its packs are from €16.15 to €32 on trendefelipeii.es. It is an extra to the ordinary Cercanías, not a replacement.

Tours from Madrid

Prices are GetYourGuide’s lowest “from” prices for one adult. The listings still use the old name of the Valley, which is why the titles below say “Valley of the Fallen”.

On the ground, San Lorenzo de El Escorial: Monastery and Site Guided Tourad is from €39.50 for 2 hours (143 reviews).

Tickets and prices

Patrimonio Nacional, the state body that runs both sites, sells tickets at tickets.patrimonionacional.es and at the monastery’s Visitor Reception Centre. Prices are the operator’s own.

Free windows. On Wednesday and Sunday afternoons the monastery is free for citizens of the European Union, residents and workers there, and Latin American citizens, shown by ID at the box office, for the visit without a guide: 15:00 to 18:00 from October to March and 15:00 to 19:00 from April to September. Visitors from the UK, US, Canada and Australia pay the full price. Entry is free for everyone on 18 May. The monastery’s tickets are bought in advance, online or at the Visitor Reception Centre.

What to see

Philip II ordered the monastery built between 1563 and 1584, and UNESCO listed it in 1984. It is a royal palace, basilica, pantheon, library and monastery in one granite building at the foot of the Sierra de Guadarrama. A guided visit takes about 2 hours.

The monastery

€14 · Tuesday to Sunday · October to March 10:00 to 18:00, April to September 10:00 to 19:00

The parts of the visit are:

• The Basilica. A Greek-cross church under a dome of nearly 100 m. It needs no ticket and closes during religious services.
• The Royal Pantheon. The crypt under the Basilica where most of Spain’s monarchs since Charles I are buried.
• The Palace of Philip II and the Hall of Battles. Philip II’s austere rooms, and a gallery of frescoes of Spanish battles.
• The Library. Manuscripts and printed books in a frescoed hall.
• The Museums of Painting and Architecture. Reopened on 2 October 2026. Entry on their own is free until 31 December 2026, from the ticket counters of the Visitor Reception Centre, and the visit is included in the monastery ticket.

The Library of El Escorial, with its frescoed vault and an armillary sphere. Photo: José Luis Filpo Cabana, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0.

The ticket office and the access to the monastery close 1 hour 15 minutes before closing, at 16:45 in winter and 17:45 in summer. Photographs without flash are allowed; tripods and selfie sticks are not. Patrimonio Nacional recommends leaving backpacks behind. Audio guides can be rented at the monastery or downloaded to a phone through GVAM’s app. Guided visits in English run Tuesday to Sunday at 10:45.

The west façade of the monastery of El Escorial. Photo: Benjamín Núñez González, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.

The Valley of Cuelgamuros (formerly the Valley of the Fallen)

€9 · closed Mondays · timed visits of about 30 minutes · run by Patrimonio Nacional

The Valle de Cuelgamuros is a state memorial in the Sierra de Guadarrama, built from 1940 to 1958 on the orders of Franco and opened in 1959. Franco was buried there until his exhumation on 24 October 2019. Patrimonio Nacional owns and runs the site, a Benedictine community lives at the abbey, and the basilica has a 150 m cross. The 2022 Law of Democratic Memory renamed it from the Valle de los Caídos.

The cross above the Valle de Cuelgamuros, with the basilica esplanade below. Photo: Elena F D, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Visits are by timed slot: from October to March, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday have slots from 10:00 to 10:30 and 12:00 to 16:30, and Wednesday and Sunday have slots to 14:30. From April to September the Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday slots run to 17:30. The ticket office closes an hour before. The funicular to the cross is closed indefinitely, and there is currently no access for visitors with reduced mobility. The basilica is a place of worship. It is closed on 1 and 6 January, 1 May, 13 September and 24, 25 and 31 December in 2026.

Bus 660 from the Plaza de la Virgen de Gracia in San Lorenzo (Autocares Herranz) is the public route; by car it is the M-600 off the A-6.

Planning the day

1. Not Monday. Both sites are shut, so plan around Tuesday to Sunday.
2. Book the monastery online and choose a morning slot; the English guided visit is at 10:45.
3. Tuesday, Thursday, Friday or Saturday for the Valley, which has the longest hours; Wednesday and Sunday slots end at 14:30.
4. By train and bus, the monastery is the day; the Valley needs a tour, a car or bus 660.
5. Winter hours apply until the end of March 2027.

El Escorial is one of the day trips from Madrid. Segovia is the other trip on the Sierra side of Madrid, and Aranjuez the other Patrimonio Nacional palace on a Cercanías line. Madrid public transport covers the Tourist Travel Pass and Cercanías, and what to book before you go to Madrid lists the sights that need tickets. Where to stay in Madrid compares the areas.