//
Photo: Miguel Ángel García. from Ólvega., España, CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons
This was a monastery farm until 1719, then Philip V acquired it and built a summer palace when his Valsain palace burned down. As a Bourbon he was much influenced by Versailles, and what started as a modest rural retreat burgeoned into a bling palace and political power centre. The village of San Ildefonso swelled with it, with barracks, lodgings for courtiers, a church, and an entire glass factory to produce the necessary amount of glass. La Granja fell out of fashion in the 1880s and suffered a fire in 1918. It's surrounded by vast gardens in 18th-century French manner.
The Royal Palace of La Granja de San Ildefonso, known as La Granja, is an early 18th-century palace in the small town of San Ildefonso, located in the hills near Segovia and 80 kilometres (50 mi) north of Madrid, within the Province of Segovia in central Spain.
© OpenStreetMap contributors
Paintings and ceramics by Daniel Zuloaga (1852-1921), in an old church.
Artefacts, models, and art related to the history, culture and lifestyle of the city and region.
Hieronymite monastery founded in 1447 and still active. Saturday morning you can join a guided tour (Spanish only) and attend mass.
The 15th century Royal Mint, now a museum of coinage and minting.
Dramatically sited at the west edge of the crag of Old Town, this was built around the 11th century, with the current facade added by Phillip II. The interior is decorated in a hotchpotch of Romanesque, Gothic, Mudejar, and Renaissance. It's variously hosted the royal court of the Trastamara Dynasty, Isabella the Catholic, the wedding of Phillip II, and the Spanish Artillery Academy. The ticket includes the Palace, Artillery Museum and Tower of Juan II. The resemblance of its witches-hat towers to Disney Castle is no accident, and scenes from Orson Welles' Chimes at Midnight were filmed here.