Desert dream Philip II's idea of El Escorial to be fulfilled with revamp

Philip II's idea of El Escorial to be fulfilled with revamp

- Sam Jones

Despite perching on a mountainside near Madrid for the better part of five centuries, the royal monastery of San Lorenzo de El Escorial has yet to give up all its treasures - or all its secrets.

Forty years after it was included on Unesco's world heritage list, Philip II's austere monument to power, piety and patronage is undergoing a major reorganisation that will allow visitors to enjoy the peace of a previously off-limits monastic patio and to look at paintings once reserved for royalty.

The two-year project, enabled by €6.5m (£5m) of EU funds, aims to reintroduce visitors to the 33,327 sq metre site, a testament to the imperial and cultural might of Spain's golden age.

El Escorial, 35 miles north-west of Madrid, was the fulfilment of Philip II's dream of raising a monastery in a "desert", far from people and other buildings. His vision, 21 years in the making, involved the genius of two architects: Juan Bautista de Toledo, who had worked with Michelangelo in Rome, and, later, Juan de Herrera, who made the most of the logistical knowledge he had acquired while fighting in Flanders for Philip's father, Charles V.

"This place was far away from everywhere else when it was founded," says Luis Pérez de Prada, the head of buildings and environment at Spain's national heritage institution, Patrimonio Nacional. "It shows humanity's ability to create something in the middle of nowhere."