I recently had my family come and pay me a second visit in Madrid; which was so lovely as I miss them and of course don’t get to see them very often living out here in Spain.
As we did a lot of the classic touristy or ‘must-do’ stuff when they first visited, I wanted to ensure that this time we did a lot of new and different activities but ones which are new for me too. Furthermore, one of the ideas I had was to go to one of the places I can get to for free on my student travel Abono card and wouldn’t cost my parents and brother too much to get to as well. After doing a lot of research of travel costs and things to do in different places, I decided on the city of Alcalá de Henares. For me, of course it was free to get to and it only cost my family a small fee of €3.74 return each! As I thought this was such a bargain price and there seemed like there was enough to do there, we went for it!
Located in northeast Madrid, this World Heritage Site, only took approximately 40 minutes to get to on the train from the Madrid Atocha train station. I had researched a lot of things for us to go and see before visiting; the city is known for its ancient 15th-century buildings which are now occupied by the University of Alcalá in the old town. It’s also known for its handouts of free and generous tapas when having a drink in a square.
Upon our arrival, our first sight to see was the Palacio Laredo on our way to walking into the city’s centre. It opened in the year of 1880 and is now currently the Cisneriano Museum which houses a documentation centre and a specialized library that includes documentary and bibliographical sources related to the history of the University of Alcalá. We were unable to visit the palace at the time as we couldn’t purchase tickets to go inside, but the outside was definitely impressive and beautiful enough.
We continued wandering through the streets to reach the main centre of the town, where we came to the Calle Mayor square and its main streets. It felt beautifully archaic with its old Spanish architecture and it had an interesting selection of twisty trees framing the pathways, creating majestic and natural archways.
Next, we decided we were hungry for lunch and stopped off at La Taberna De Rusty for some super cheap but very good quality tapas – prices ranged from approximately €1.60-3.50 per tapa and it was all very tasty and definitely good value for money.
We then continued our walk through the city and reached the roughly 520-year-old university buildings, they were definitely impressive to look at and felt quite grand inside. I couldn’t believe this was a university, it felt so old-fashioned and formal, almost too much so for a university. However, the architecture was quite stunning and I was quite jealous that these students studied in such beautiful buildings.
The Cathedral of St Justus and St Pastor was our next sight to see. It’s a Roman Catholic cathedral which opened in 414 AD. Unfortunately, we were unable to enter the building as it was closed, but it was definitely stunning to look at and admire.
Following this, we wandered to the Archbishop’s Palace of the city, it was a very impressive and large building with decorative fencing and quaint small doors to enter. Parts of the building supposedly dates back to 1209, although apparently two thirds of the place were destroyed as a result of an awful fire in 1939 during the Spanish Civil War, consequently, apparently what remains today is what was left intact after the fire as the damaged parts were not restored.
We then came across the Monastery of Saint Bernard building, another very impressive structure with lots of luscious plants around it which made it very picturesque.
After walking this far, around most of the main areas of the city, we returned to the almost village-like streets near to Calle Mayor. They were lined with a mixture of independent and chain high street shops, but the intricately ornate balconies and old wooden beams were what gave the streets their medieval-like charm.
We finally made our way back to the train station, feeling pleased with our very relaxing and Spanish cultured day trip out!