Madrid · Madrid
Escorial, El
Home to the largest Spanish building of the Renaissance — rectangular, overbearing and austere, resembling a prison more than a palace from the outside.
Why people fall for Escorial, El
Portrait drawn from The Rough Guide.
Worth the trip
- The Real Monasterio del Escorial, built 1563-1584 to commemorate victory at the battle of San Quentin
- The Biblioteca, with the tenth-century Codex Albeldensis and St Teresa's personal diary
A little history
Felipe II planned the complex as both monastery and mausoleum, where he would live the life of a monk and 'rule the world with two inches of paper.'
Who it suits: Royal-history travellers
Who Escorial, El is for — and who it isn't
Not our opinion: we ran the same scoring engine behind the quiz for six settler profiles across all 8,132 municipalities and read off where Escorial, El lands.
Escorial, El is mid-pack for all six profiles we score (between the 34th and 72nd percentile) — a solid all-rounder, a standout for nobody. Your own priorities may read it differently: that's what the quiz is for.
The numbers
The decision data — each figure placed among all Spanish municipalities that report it ("top 10%" always means good, also where lower is better). Regional overlays and estimates are labelled, and where there's no local reading we say so plainly.
Climate
- Winter average temp
- 1°C bottom 1% of 8,131 towns 6.8°C below the Spanish average (7.8°C)
- Summer high (Jul–Aug)
- 22.9°C top 3% of 8,131 towns 7.3°C below the Spanish average (30.2°C)
- Rainy days a year
- 113 days bottom 7% of 8,088 towns 64% more than the Spanish average (69 days)
- Sunshine estimated
- 6.4 h/day bottom 18% of 3,829 towns 12% less than the Spanish average (7.2 h/day)
- Summer water stress (WEI+) regional estimate
- 44 bottom 49% of 8,033 towns 12 below the Spanish average (56)
Cost & economy
- Home price
- no local data
- Net income per person
- €17,477 top 12% of 8,059 towns 21% more than the Spanish average (€14,495)
- Income growth ’18–’23
- 24.3% bottom 40% of 6,605 towns
Schools
- Schools in town
- 7 top 9% of 7,042 towns
- Nearest international school
- 10 km top 8% of 8,132 towns
- PISA maths (region) regional estimate
- 494 #4 of 17 regions, +15 vs national 13 above the Spanish average (481)
Healthcare
- Drive to a hospital
- 12 min top 9% of 8,132 towns
- Nearest health centre
- 4.7 km top 21% of 7,025 towns
- Surgical wait (region) regional estimate
- 50 days #1 of 17 regions, −53 days vs national 54% less than the Spanish average (108 days)
Getting around
- Drive to nearest airport
- 54 min top 29% of 8,132 towns
- Fibre-to-home coverage
- 88% bottom 46% of 8,132 towns 9% above the Spanish average (79%)
- 100 Mbps+ coverage
- 92% bottom 47% of 8,132 towns 9% above the Spanish average (83%)
Who lives here
- Population
- 17,322
- Born in Spain
- 82.6% 6.2% below the Spanish average (88.8%)
- Born elsewhere in EU/UK
- 4.2% 0.4% above the Spanish average (3.8%)
- U.S.-born residents
- 2.54 per 1,000
Numbers: SpainScore town dataset, derived from INE, AEMET, Mitma and the Catastro. Percentile chips count only the municipalities that report the figure — the "of n" says how many. Region-ranked figures (PISA, surgical waits) compare Spain's 17 comunidades autónomas. A blank means no municipal-level figure is published — not a zero.
The year, month by month
AEMET 30-year climate normals — what a January or an August actually feels like, not the annual average.
How does Escorial, El fit you?
These are the town's numbers. Whether it's your town depends on what you're optimising for — winter sun or mild summers, a city or a village, short medical waits, an easy flight home. The 3-minute quiz scores Escorial, El against every one of Spain's 8,132 municipalities on your priorities. It sits about 19 min from Collado Villalba, if that's your anchor.
Take the quiz — rank Escorial, El for you →Nearby towns
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