San Juan de los Reyes

This beautiful church was built by King Ferdnando and Queen Isabel to commemorate both the birth of their son, Prince Juan, and their victory at the Battle of Toro during the Reconquest of Catholic Spain. Hanging on the walls outside the church are hundreds of handcuffs from the freed Christian prisoners from the South of Spain. This is the church I usually go to for Mass, since it’s literally two minutes away from my family’s house, and whenever I walk to the main plaza, the Plaza de Zocodover, I walk past this beautiful view of the church.

The church also served as a monastery, and so the cloister is stunningly beautiful, and has a small garden in which, among other plants, an orange tree is growing!! They had to put a net across the very top, so that birds don’t swarm in to eat all the fruit and poop on everything.