Everything is as grey as granite. The skies, the mountains, the enormous crucifix hewn from the mountain rock – said to be one of the tallest in the world – and, in its shadow, the vast basilica of Valle de los Caídos in the Sierra de Guadarrama, near Madrid, where rests the body of General Francisco Franco, the last dictator of Spain.
Inside is no different. The church is as wide and tall as any cathedral, the distance from entrance to altar long enough to rival St Peter's in Rome. And all of it is filled with the cold, stone grey of the mountains. Above the pews, standing like sentries on their outsized columns, loom hooded statue monks, their granite hands resting on unsheathed swords, as if ready.
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