El Escorial
- Address:San Lorenzo de El Escorial
- Hours:Open Tues - Sun 10am - 5pm Oct - Mar, 10am - 6pm Apr - Sept
- Admission:Adults: €8
Cultural Experience, Must-Do Experience, Off-the-Beaten Path, Religious Experience, Church / Cathedral, Monastery, Monument - Historical
El Escorial Reviews
We've found 174 El Escorial reviews from Viator.com travelers and members: what they loved, what they liked and what they think could be improved. It's all here to help you make the most of your next trip.
Dear Viator,
My comments ditto from my submission regarding the Toledo half-day tour.
Thank you again.
Marina T. Rodriguez
To much time visting souvenier shops.
Raining heavily the day we went. A long walk from the coach to the El Escorial. This should be stated in the information about the trip because for people with mobility problems, it is totally unsuitable. The whole experience was exhausting for us, as we both have hip and knee problems. Felt the guide was constantly rushing us. Then on to the Valley of the Fallen, which is in a beautiful setting, unfortunately with the rain and the mist, we weren´t able to fully take in the beauty of the place, Yet again we were rushed around by the guide. Would have liked more time here to truly reflect on the place. Would like to return but without a guide. The guide was very knowledgable but there was information in English all the way round, so would have preferred to do this at our own pace.
Good
Gorgeous view, very knowledgeable and friendly guide. Hope to back soon!
Guide Arturo was very knowledgeable and helpful
I was extremely disappointed with this tour. I booked an English speaking tour and our guide first spoke Spanish and then English. Because of this, the tour took longer and we didn't have enough time to look around the rooms and absorb the splendor and history of the Monastery. We were rushed and felt that we were mis-lead when booking the tour because it was not clearly stated that the tour was bi-lingual. Although our Alhambra tour was wonderful, I will not consider Viator again for any tours because of this.
The guides were very nice and informative. Would have like a bit of time on my own in Toledo to explore the city. Did not really care for the crafts store they took us to at the end of the tour.
Enjoyed both of these locations very much and the tour guides were informative and the tour well paced.
The guide was very good , the bus comfortable and we enjoyed the visit very much
El Escorial is spectacular, and everything about the tour went smoothly, but the guide was quite standoffish and I feel that she only provided the most basic information about the sites (I had been to all before). I understand that Valle de los Caidos is a very polarizing place, but the guide gave very little info and then got out of there as quickly as she could. We actually skipped Toledo because we had just run the Madrid marathon and were more tired than we anticipated - it is a big day of activity, so make sure you have energy!
Nice places to visit, with some drawbacks
1. This is a combination of two different tours, so you will spend two extra hour getting back to Julia's office in Downtown Madrid, waiting for the next departure and leaving again the congestion of Downtown
2. The departure to Escorial was a bit disorganized and we left 20 minutes late (not because any passenger was missing)
3. The driver had no idea where to go, he was constantly getting lost, taking wrong entrances...he almost took a wrong way when we exit Valle de los Caidos
4. The guide was a very unpleasant woman. She was shouting to the driver all the time, in front of all of us. Actually she was so mean that all the passengers were laughing.
5. She said she could not do the guide tour inside the Basilica at Valle de los Caidos for some political prescription, but there were another guide tour inside.
6. They did not give us time to walk around the gardens of El Escorial, which seems to be beautiful
7. The visit inside El Escorial was too fast, we were almost running. She kept repeating that we needed to be back in MAdrid because some passengers needed to go to some lunch before their tour to Toledo.
The Aranjuez tour was much better, the guide was a nice laid back guy, with better attitude and a lot of humor.
Wonderful tour, only wished we could spend more time at both places. We were also taken to the Valley of the Fallen monument wich is spectacular. The lunch at El Museo del Jamon was really bad and the service was horrible. The guides were pleasant and knowledgeable, especially the one that took us in the morning to El Escorial on April 6th.
The two sites were wonderful to visit, especially El Escorial. The only critique I have, and unfortunately it is a major one, is that the tour was marketed as a "tour only in English." In reality, the tour was a bilingual tour with the guide presenting in both Spanish and English. While that did not seriously mar my enjoyment of the tour, it was wrong as a matter of principle to have marketed it as an English-only tour.
Great tour.
