Did you know that the largest cross in the world, which has a towering height of 150-metre (500 feet) and is visible over 30 kilometers (20 miles) away, is located in the Valley of the Fallen wherein lies the remains of 40,000 people?

The Valley of the Fallen (now known as The Valley of Cuelgamuros), a monument in the Sierra de Guadarrama, near Madrid, Spain, contains a Catholic basilica and a monumental memorial in the municipality of San Lorenzo de El Escorial. Dictator Francisco Franco ordered the construction of the monumental site as a "national act of atonement" and reconciliation. It was built from 1940 to 1958, and opened in 1959.

A prominent feature of the monument is the towering 150-metre-high (500 ft) Christian cross, the tallest such cross in the world, erected over a granite outcrop 150 metres over the basilica esplanade and visible from over 30 kilometres (20 mi) away.

The monumental site served as Franco's burial place from his death in November 1975—although it was not originally intended that he be buried there—until his exhumation on 24 October 2019 following a long and controversial legal process, due to moves to remove all public honoration of his dictatorship.

The monument, considered a landmark of 20th-century Spanish architecture, was designed by Pedro Muguruza and Diego Méndez on a scale to equal, according to Franco. Together with the Universidad Laboral de Gijón, it is the most prominent example of the original Spanish Neo-Herrerian style, which was intended to form part of a revival of Juan de Herrera's architecture, exemplified by the nearby royal residence El Escorial.

The monument precinct covers over 13.6 square kilometres (3,360 acres) of Mediterranean woodlands and granite boulders on the Sierra de Guadarrama hills, more than 900 metres (3,000 ft) above sea level and includes a basilica, a Benedictine abbey, a guest house, the Valley, and the Juanelos—four cylindrical monoliths dating from the 16th century. 

According to the official ledger, the cost of the construction totalled 1,159 million pesetas, funded through national lottery draws and donations. Some of the labourers were prisoners who traded their labour for a reduction in time served.

The complex is owned and operated by the Patrimonio Nacional, the Spanish governmental heritage agency, and ranked as the third most visited monument of the Patrimonio Nacional in 2009. The Spanish social democrat government closed the complex to visitors at the end of 2009, citing safety reasons connected to restoration on the façade.

Beneath the valley floor lie the remains of 40,000 people, whose names are accounted for in the monument's register. The valley contains both Nationalist and Republican graves, but the dedication written in stone reads Caídos por Dios y por España (Fallen for God and for Spain, which is criticized because it was the Francoist Spain motto) and numerous symbols of the Francoist regime.

Moreover, Republicans were interred here mostly without the consent or even the knowledge of their families; some estimates claim that there are 33,800 victims of Francoism interred — and their families have legal problems in recovering the remains of their family member. Franco was exhumed and removed from the church in 2019 as an effort to discourage public veneration of the site.

SOURCE: Wikipedia

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