Alcalá de Henares has a talent for producing writers. Miguel de Cervantes was born here in 1547, and a house museum in the old town commemorates him. The university, founded by Cardinal Cisneros in 1499, was one of the earliest planned university towns in Europe and a model for institutions in the Americas, and its Renaissance and Baroque buildings, with their stone façades and courtyards, are the core of the UNESCO listing that Alcalá received in 1998 for its university and historic precinct. The Paraninfo, the ceremonial hall, is where the Cervantes Prize is presented each year.
Walk the Calle Mayor, a long, arcaded street, and you pass cafés, bookshops and the Corral de Comedias, a seventeenth-century theatre that is among the oldest in Europe. Storks nest on the church towers and the belfries, and in spring the rooftops are crowned with big, untidy nests. Alcalá is a city of about two hundred thousand, so fuel, food and parking are straightforward, though the centre is largely pedestrianised. The local custom is to go bar-hopping for tapas, with a small plate coming free with each drink.
Alcalá lies about thirty-five kilometres east of Madrid on the Henares river, a flat, open valley with fields and industrial estates, so the approach is by motorway and the immediate surroundings are busy. Madrid's own Paseo del Prado and Buen Retiro, listed by UNESCO in 2021, are a short ride away on the same trip, and for riders the pleasure is to combine the old university city with the capital's great boulevards.
For a quiet ride, head north or east into the Alcarria, a land of olive groves, lavender and honey, where the roads are empty and the villages sleepy. Spring and autumn are comfortable, and summers are hot and dry, with the town emptying in August. In early morning the light on the golden stone of the university is warm, and the sound of church bells carries across the square.