Alcalá de Henares, 25 km east of Madrid, is a charming UNESCO world heritage city worth a day trip. Its claim to fame is being the birthplace of Miguel de Cervantes, the author of Don Quijote de la Mancha.

1. Museo-Casa Cervantes: Learn here about Cervantes’ life and get a glimpse of life in the 17th century and copies of Don Quijote on display. Free admission.

2. Universidad de Alcalá: Tour the university campus, spread through the city center, which boasts very old buildings and a particularly impressive main façade. You can also see the city’s native stork population roosting overhead.

3. Plaza de Cervantes: Stroll the main plaza of the city, anchored by a statue of its namesake. Nearby is the city tourist office and an art exhibition space in the Capilla de Oidor. Alacalaínos love to congregate here, especially around sunset.

4. Calle Mayor: Explore this pedestrian-only cobblestone street to the north of Plaza de Cervantes, with its shops and cafés.

5. Semana Cervantina: If you can visit for Cervantes’ birthday celebration (October 9), you’ll be in for a week-long medieval festival and other events paying homage to the author.

You can get to Alcalá in about 40 minutes via Cercanías lines C-1, C-2 or C-7, departing from Atocha in Madrid.

See map below for locations mentioned above:

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The lovely Sierra de Guadarrama lies to the north and northwest of the city, offering great train-accessible hiking. But the closest bit of mountainous wilderness to Madrid is in the southern foothills of the Sierra—in La Pedriza. Just a 45-minute bus ride from Plaza Castilla, La Pedriza is a granite paradise for hikers and climbers, complete with a river (the famed Río Manzanares, or the river-that-runs-through-Madrid-though-you-might-not-know-it because the local government has been busy messing with it to build an underground highway).

Regardless of the condition in which the river reaches the city, it’s still pristine in La Pedriza. There are some lovely swimming holes (I can proudly attest to have bathed there twice in warmer months) and many kilometers of hiking trails through the rocky wilderness. Armed with a good map or one of the handy route descriptions available at the visitor’s center, you can spend a day walking and breathing clean mountain air far from the madding crowd.

The green interurban bus 724 travels from Plaza Castilla to Manzanares el Real at least once every hour and costs 3.10 euros one way. The bus leaves you in the center of town, meaning you have to hoof it several kilometers to reach the park, via either Avda. de la Pedriza (which follows the river north) or the (very helpful) visitor’s center at the western edge of town.

Visitor’s center: 91 853 99 78. La Pedriza is about 50 km north west of Madrid, see map below:

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Toledo makes a great day-trip from Madrid. Go by train: the comfy Avant takes only 30 minutes and at 8.60€ one-way or 15€ round-trip (discount when buying return ticket in advance or in Toledo), it costs little more than the bus.

From the tiled train station, hike up the hill or take bus #22 or #6 to get to the city’s nerve center. Be sure to wear comfortable shoes; you’ll be walking many a cobblestone street. At the tourist stand in the bustling Zocodóver Plaza you can pick up a free map, but at some point, enjoy losing your way in the labyrinth.

I suggest you see these religious buildings, in order of most awe-inspiring to least:

• Museo Sefardí/Sinagoga de Tránsito (museum of Spanish Jews attached to synagogue)
• Museo de los Concilios y la Cultura Visigoda (Visigoth church with breathtaking Romanesque frescos)
• Sinagoga de Santa María la Blanca
• Mezquita del Cristo de la Luz
• Mezquita de Tornerías

The last three are free, provided you don’t go inside the Cristo de la Luz mosque (you can see everything from outside) and the rest are 2€ or less.

The main El Greco attraction is the Iglesia de Santo Tomé, where his Burial of Count Orgaz is hung (1,90€). El Greco works can also be seen at the Museo del Greco (closed until early 2008); the Museo de Santa Cruz (1,20€); the Monasterio de Santo Domingo El Antiguo (1,90€); the Hospital de Tavera/Museo Duque de Lerma, outside the city center (4€) and in the cathedral sacristy (6€).

Unfortunately, Toledo’s grand Alcázar is closed while being converted to a military museum but it should re-open sometime in 2008. Don’t miss the city walls, especially the mudéjar Puerta de Sol. Finally, typical Toledan souvenirs include marzipan, gold-inlay damascene jewelery, and swords, if you’re into any of those things.

Toledo is about 80 km South West of Madrid – see map below:

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Want to get out of the city for a day? Already been to Toledo and El Escorial? Set your sights just beyond the Sierra de Guadarrama mountains to Segovia. And be sure not to miss the Top 5 must-sees.

1. Roman Aqueduct – The 2000 year-old aqueduct is at its most glorious spanning the Plaza del Azoguejo where it stands almost 100 feet (29 meters) high. Its close proximity to the bus and train stations makes the aqueduct a smart first stop and you can get a free town map at the tourist office in the same plaza.

2. El Alcazar – Sitting atop a steep precipice is the 11th century castle. Its manageable size enables you to enjoy the gilded ceilings, tapestries, and stained glass in a couple hours – with or without guide (only offered in Spanish). Be sure to climb the tower for stunning views of the cathedral and town.

3. Shopping – Wander up Calles Juan Bravo and Daoiz. Both streets boast numerous shops of varying quality – from the typical post-card and t-shirt joints to art galleries with original work and several specialty jewelry stores.

4. Church hopping – The cathedral dominating Plaza Mayor is just the beginning. For a town of just under 60,000 Segovia boasts a disproportionate number of churches. The most interesting of them, La Iglesia de la Vera Cruz, is outside the walls, but the half-hour walk down from the Alcazar is worth it to visit the 13th century Knights Templar basilica.

5. Cochinillo – Cut with the edge of a plate, roast suckling pig is THE dish of Segovia. Restaurants offering the specialty, the most famous of which are El Candido and El Duque, abound. Don’t, however, feel limited to these. Follow your nose and you won’t go wrong.

How to get there

Take a bus from the Sepulvedana office in front of Estación Principe Pio, round-trip 11€, about 1 hour 15 minutes, departures every 1/2 hour. Or take the train from either Atocha or Chamartin stations, roundtrip 11.50€, just over two hours, departures every two hours. Service on the high-speed AVE from Chamartin starts in late December.

See below for a map of the places mentioned above:

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As the train draws you into the foothills of the Sierra, it’s hard not to be awed by the prospect of the town’s main draw, the sixteenth century monastery. Best visited at 3pm when the Spaniards have fled for lunch, this austere building still houses many of the masterpieces selected by Velasquez for Philip IV, including Titian’s Last Supper. Leave enough time for the basilica, which makes most Spanish cathedrals look like theme parks.

When hunger strikes, avoid the photo-flaunting restaurants and head for Plaza de la Constitución, favoured by the locals. La Clementina (no. 9) serves high quality modern Spanish food, with the option of sitting outside when it’s sunny.

The tourist office opposite the monastery is helpful and friendly, and can provide details of other attractions, as well as walking routes. The most popular takes you up to La Machota Alta and back again, on a two-hour trek though pine forest – the perfect antidote to three glasses of Rioja.

Trains leave from Atocha every hour, Cercanías line C-8a (see Renfe site). Adult return 5.50€. Monastery entrance (without guide) 8€. See here for opening hours. See the map below for El Escorials location, north-west of Madrid:

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After around a decade of closure due to lack of sufficient public interest, Madrid’s Hipódromo horse racing track reopened last year. Today marked the beginning of the new season, which runs through to July 19th. This is an extremely pleasurable way to spend a Sunday morning, especially a sunny one like today’s! There are five to six races through the morning, running from 11.15 to 2 p.m., though arriving around 10.45 gives you time to find your way around and get your first bets down.

The betting is where the fun lies. The minimum bet is 1 Euro, and you can place a range of different bets which are initially somewhat complicated to master. A Ganador bet is easy, you bet on the winner, but won’t reap huge rewards if your horse comes in first. Better is to go for a Gemela reversible, where you pick the first two horses past the post, and win no matter what order they come in. A Trio no reversible means picking first, second and third past the post, in the right order – get that right and you stand to win a lot of money. There are others, but that’s as far as I got! One thing I noticed is that if you don’t bet on a particular race, it’s really a lot less fun to watch.

What is strange is that there is no way to work out the odds before you bet. Whereas in the UK you know that a certain horse has odds of 5 to 1 to win, and can work out your winnings when you place your bet, here you have to wait until the race is over and the payouts for each type of bet are placed up on a board behind the paddock.

So, you spend the morning wandering from the paddock (to check out the horses and riders as they saddle up), to the track, to the betting booths, stopping every now and again for a beer or Butifarra sandwich, people watching, cheering on your horses… great stuff. My total winnings for the day? Zero. I lost a grand total of 12 Euros, and it was worth every centimo! There are more photos from the day over at Flickr, and a short video below (from our Spanish videoblogging collection!)

Info: The Hipódromo is on Avenida Padre Huidobro (map), 8 km from Madrid just off the A6 (take the 8 km exit). You can get there by car, taxi or bus (No. 162 from Moncola bus station). A basic entrance ticket cost 9 Euros, and tickets can be bought in advance from entradas.com Pick up a program when you arrive to find out who is racing and when, and what bets you can place on each race. More info at hipodromodelazarzuela.es

“For much of my adult life I hated the idea of walking in the mountains. I had some unhappy childhood memories of stumbling around behind my father, lost on foggy, boggy hillsides in the north of England. Soaked to the skin and frozen, we would finally get off the hills only to end up in a cold, gloomy youth hostel; it put me off the idea for years. I think I began to change my mind the first time I came to Spain; as I travelled along the coast of Cantabria and Asturias looking at the sunlit foothills of the Picos de Europa. It was that missing element in Britain that did it – sunshine. However I didn’t really change my opinion until I came to live in Madrid several years later, the mountains of the Sierra de Guadarrama are so accessible from the city that it was almost inevitable that I would eventually get there.

At first my partner and I went walking with organised groups, and we still do occasionally – although now we are just as likely to go off on our own or with friends. Two of the companies we have used often for day walks or even longer trips are Tierra de Fuego and Geographica; although there are others that operate in Madrid. The advantage of going with these companies is that they have experienced guides and they take you there and back, it’s a great way to discover routes that you might never find out about otherwise. The main disadvantage can be that walking across a mountain in the company of 40 other people is not always a very peaceful experience.

The accessibility of the mountains from Madrid means that it’s not very difficult to do something on your own initiative, even without a car. The simplest way I know to get into the heart of the sierra is to get on a Cercanias train from Madrid (Atocha or Chamartin) to the village of Cercedilla. From Cercedilla there are two main options.

The first option is to take another train from Cercedilla station, el Tren de la Naturaleza, which winds its way around a beautiful mountain route via the Puerto de Navacerrada and finishes at the Puerto de Cotos. At Cotos you are already at a height of over 1800 metres. For the more determined walker the logical route to take from here is that which takes you to the top of the highest peak in the Sierra de Guadarrama at over 2400 metres, Peñalara. Personally, I would not do this route in winter; every year there are accidents as the ill-prepared and even the more experienced walkers get into trouble on the ice covered rocks on the far side of the peak. When there is no ice it is perfectly accessible. For those who want an easy walk around Cotos the best option is to head along the well marked path to the glacial Laguna Grande de Peñalara, only 45-60 minutes from the railway station at Cotos and with fantastic views. For a route that is longer but not over strenuous, you could continue further to the Laguna de los Pajaros. The trains to Cotos usually coincide with arrivals from Madrid, but check the timetable in advance as there is not always a Cotos train coinciding with the Madrid arrival.

The second option from Cercedilla is to walk directly up the valley of Fuenfria. Walking to the end of the main platform towards the tunnel, you take a right turn onto a path marked with painted blue circles. After a short climb up from the railway line you get onto a broader path and continue to follow this for the next 3-4 kilometres until you reach the hospital. Turning right here, and still following the painted circles marked on the trees, you get to an information office where you can get a rough plan of all the marked routes in the area.

From this point you can either opt for a route that takes you high up to somewhere like Siete Picos or Monton de Trigo, or you can just go for a shorter walk in the beautiful pine woods around the valley. A direct medium length route along the old Roman road, the Calzada Romana, takes you up to the Puerto de Fuenfria from where you can look down onto the Segovian side of the Sierra. In this area there are plenty of options for both long and short walking routes.

It’s important to go well prepared, especially if you are aiming for the higher ground above 1500 metres. The weather can change very abruptly and at 2000 metres temperatures can drop sharply. I remember eating my lunch in the sunshine on Siete Picos one day last winter; only to be stumbling around in freezing fog 20 minutes later as the clouds moved in and the wind made it extremely cold. Any time outside of the summer months it is vital to have good quality warm and waterproof clothing. Good boots are needed too, the higher areas can be very rocky. In addition a reasonable map and a compass are always important things to have. Despite the note of caution about weather conditions, winter or early spring can be a fantastic time to go; a crisp clear sunny day with a bit of snow still on the ground and you don’t even need to think about those windy, wet British hillsides.”

Google Earth users: Graeme has prepared a .kmz file showing all the main areas mentioned in the article. Download the file using this link: Guadarrama_pts.kmz and double click it to launch Google Earth. Don’t have google earth? Get it here, it’s pretty amazing!