Kicked out of the Valley of the Fallen! / �Expulsado del Valle de los Caidos!

By Godot13 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0

I was in Madrid last weekend. The weather was wonderful! I visited with friends, went to see the newly enlarged Prado, had a great night of dancing at Joy and ate some delicious local food, as well as Asturian and Galician cuisine -- oh, and an excellent lunch at a restaurant called Felipe in the pretty little ski town of  Navacerrada.  However, one of the most memorable things about the weekend was getting kicked out of the Valley of the Fallen. (El Valle de Los Caidos.).
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The Valley of the Fallen is a national park about 50 kilometers outside of Madrid in the Sierra de Guadarrama mountains. The valley itself is a lovely place of woods and greenery. However, rising out of this natural beauty is the cold and gray Basilica of the Holy Cross of the Valley of the Fallen (Bas�lica de la Santa Cruz del Valle de los Ca�dos), which was carved out of a giant granite ridge as an ominous looking monument to the Fascists who won the Spanish Civil War. Construction began in 1941 and was completed in 1959.
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Thousands of prisoners, including political prisoners, were forced to work on the site. At least fourteen of these were killed during construction and many others suffered injuries.
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We visited on Friday the 25th, which was a sunny spring-like day. There were hardly any other visitors, so we parked in the near empty lot just beneath the basilica.
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One of the first sites to greet us was an abandoned and tattered looking series of shops -- a souvenir shop, a post office and a cafeteria -- shuttered up with rotted wood, rusted metal and water stained paper.
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Undaunted by this, we walked up the stairs to the giant esplanade that sits in front of the basilica. From here the views of the valley and towns in the distance were fantastic.
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Next we entered the basilica itself, after going through security checkpoints that rivaled anything in international airports. Once inside the hall of the basilica, I felt a little overwhelmed by the literal and atmospheric darkness of the place.
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We walked down the lengthy corridor, which in reality is a tunnel, past foreboding sculptures and grandiloquent tapestries, towards the altar. Once at the front, I separated from the others to walk around.
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In front of the altar I noticed flowers and candles sitting atop a marker that was embedded in the ground. I walked closer and read the name Francisco Franco. So surprised was I by the location of respect that the grave had that without thinking I grimaced, let out a "Yuk!" and stomped one of my feet on the grave.
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Next thing I knew, two furiously gesticulating guards approached saying, "�Fuera! �Fuera! �Si no te gusta Franco, fuera!" ("Get out! Get out! If you don't like Franco, get out!") Two of my friends started arguing with the guards, but I had had enough and just wanted to exit that dark hole. So, I convinced them to leave and we walked away from the dinginess surrounding the dictator's tomb towards the sunshine and fresh air.
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Although I have no desire to go there again, perhaps I would if it were converted from merely an ostentatious tribute to one of Mussolini's and Hitler's cohorts into a true memorial about the Spanish Civil War.