Alcala de Henares, a small town near Madrid, is a home of Spain’s most prestigious university and the birthplace of great Spanish novelist, Miguel de Cervantes, so this city breathes with two things – university and Don Quijote.

As the first planned University town in the world, Alcala de Henares is another example of city planning on the World Heritage List; however, this special characteristic is less obvious as I think this town is just a typical Spanish town in term of urban layout. The prime attraction of the town is university (for sure) which is situated in the town centre area. Strolling around this large and beautifully constructed in Spanish renaissance style university complex is a very nice experience. The must see is the amazingly Paraninfa Hall where the Spanish monarchs give out annual Cervantes Award to outstanding writer.

Alcala de Henares was a prosperous town, in the historic precinct, which is just next to the university, has many nice and attractive balconied buildings and churches. The large city square with a statue of Cervantes is a really surprised as it gave an Italy reminiscent to me. The main reason for most tourists who come to this city is Cervantes Museum which is located on the site believed to be his birth place. The museum is OK with many objects from Cervantes period or the scene from his novels. The most disappointed from this museum is no one can speak English, but it is a free museum so I didn’t expect much for language service. In front of the museum is a statue of Don Quijote and his partner, Sancho Panza with a long queue of tourists who want to sit between them for a good photo opportunity.

Alcala de Henares seems to be a quite popular place for Spanish tourists with considerably amount of restaurants and souvenir shops; I hardly heard any foreign languages except Spanish. I think the town has a horse riding school, as I saw many students rode their horses to the city centre making the town’s atmosphere more memorable with the old time charm. I even saw one guy withdrew some money from ATM while he was sitting on the horse! What’s a combination of old and new worlds!

This town is a true jewel of Comunidad de Madrid and should get more attentions from foreign tourists even though I afraid the charm of the town will lose forever with the influx of tourists like other WHS. From Madrid, there have many frequent suburban trains connect Madrid with Alcala de Henares in just less 50 minutes.