Economy
Tourism, hospitality and trade are the main economic activities of San Lorenzo de El Escorial. The municipality is one of the most important tourist destinations in the community of Madrid. Visitors usually make day trips with Madrid tourism as a starting point. The number of tourists staying overnight are insignificant as in other historical cities in the region, such as Alcalá de Henares, Aranjuez or Chinchón.
In recent years, the town has attempted to consolidate hotel tourism, trade fairs, conventions and cultural and educational nature courses. The Universidad Complutense holds summer courses to promote San Lorenzo de El Escorial as a Euroforum installations. The municipality has 10 hotels with a total of 611 rooms (year 2006).
Inside of this municipality are two of the most visited monuments in the nation national. The Monastery of El Escorial is the second most visited monument with highest number of visits (504,238 tourists 2004), short of the Royal Palace in Madrid (720,710 in the same year). The Valley of the Fallen, located on the outskirts of town, is the third in the national list (407,578).
Construction is another economic activity on the rise in San Lorenzo de El Escorial. Although much of its area is protected, as with the Herrería forests, the town has experienced strong urban growth in recent years, with the creation of new housing developments in areas that lack legal protection from development. This is the case of the southeastern slope of Mount Abantos, which has many newly constructed neighbourhoods, especially after the August 21, 1999, fire that burned 450 acres (1.8 km2) of pine.
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—Doris Lessing (b. 1919)
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—Alexander Herzen (1812–1870)
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—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)