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You can play football, basketball, tennis and practise other sports.
There are several swimming pools

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You can play in the play area, go for a walk, ride your bike, play with your Friends or go to the swimming pool (in the summer).
It is called 'Park of the ducks' because there was a pond with ducks. There are many pigeons and other birds.

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Storks have built their nests on many towers of the historical buildings.

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The cathedral is a Gothic construction onto which was added a tower in the Herreran style in the 17th century.
Since 1549, the cathedral is also a Magisterial church. This title means that every priest of the chapter had to be magistri, doctors in Theology by the University founded by Cisneros.

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You can taste almendras garrapiñadas (glazed almonds), ring-shaped pastries or costrada. Delicious!!!

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Alcalá de Henares is well known for its food, but the reputation and quality of its sweets also attracts large numbers of tourists and fans of pastry all over the world.
If there is something typical and characteristic of Spanish culture is its gastronomy: typical, varied, tasty and worldwide recognized for being beneficial to health. Alcalá de Henares's gastronomy is plenty of typical dishes of Castilla-la Mancha cuisine alluding archetypal Don Quixote's meals such as: garlic soup, fried breadcrumbs with chorizo or fried eggs.

But baking has the sweetest fame, with products bearing centuries delighting the sweetest tooth.

Top 5: Most Famous Sweets in Alcalá de Henares

Costrada of Alcalá

The costrada is a delicious cake made with puff pastry filled with cream and meringue and covered by chopped almonds cooked au gratin. As the years went by, local and national people spread its fame until today, when the costrada is offered in almost all touristic restaurants. In many of them, they are curiously served with custard.

The pastry shops Salinas and El Postre have been considered by everyone as the creators of Alcalá's costrada recipe. Despite the disappearance of both confectioneries, Salinas employees have opened a new pastry-shop at calle Mayor, so its memory is not entirely lost, and you can delight yourself tasting costradas while visiting the historical Alcalá's city center.

Click here to read more about the Costrada of Alcalá.

Almonds of Alcalá

Almonds of Alcalá are Alcalá's sweets par excellence. Probably of Arabic origin, there are documentary evidences of its existence since eighteenth century, so they have been traditionally famous as Alcalá's gastronomic ambassadors.

Almonds of Alcalá are made with almonds and toasted sugar syrup. It is a simple but exquisite recipe, used with expertise by the enclosed Convent of the Clarisas of San Diego, whose nuns are called "almonders". The nuns of the Order of St Claire had worked as dressmakers from time immemorial, and are also known as "Diegas of Alcalá" by being their patron San Diego of Alcalá.

If you want to know the most curious, and tourist traditional way to buy Almonds of Alcalá, click

Alcalá's Ring-Shaped Pastries

Ring-shaped pastries (Rosquillas de Alcalá) are a confectionery product very extended in Spain, especially Madrid, and there are varied specialties: dull, smart, Santa Clara's, French's... The most famous Alcalá's ring-shaped pastries have a characteristic yellow color are those called smarts.

Alcalá's ring-shaped pastries are made by a flour dough, eggs and sugar, with a hole in its center. The pastries were originated in the Rome Empire, where bakers were forced to cook in fifty ovens a certain daily quantity of bread. Then, when their daily duty of preparing such essential food ended, bakers used the ovens which still hot to prepare roasts, pies and desserts as ring-shaped pastries.

Click here to find out why the Alcalá's ring-shaped pastries are "smart".

Tejas of Alcalá

Tejas or tiles are pastries to have with tea, coffee, or desserts made by sweet wine or liquor. Hence, you can enjoy a sweet and smooth bite at any time, a very popular fancy among Alcalá de Henares confectioneries.

Tile is a Complutensian dessert directly linked with others-such as and sugared almonds-through a fundamental ingredient in Spanish confectionery: the almond. This is what gives life an especially delicious taste.

Click here to read more about the Tejas of Alcalá.

Penitentes of Alcalá

The celebration of Holy Week in Alcalá is followed by more than 100,000 people. Gathering together visitors and city inhabitants, both the faithful and tourists attend processions. Such festivities are linked to a centenary gastronomical tradition adapted to the Catholic religious rule of this period, as the prohibition of eating meat. Confectionery has a special role in this celebration, represented in Alcalá by torrijas [French fried toast], and chocolate and almond penitents.

Apart from torrijas -the greatest sweet in that interval in Alcalá-, since a few years ago, confectioneries of Alcalá offer penitents, which are only so by name, as when you taste it, you see they are in fact a sweet and joyful "penancy".

Click here to read more about Penitentes.

Additional Information:

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Top 5: Most Famous Sweets in Alcalá de Henares - Dream Alcalá

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Alcalá de Henares is well known for its food, but the reputation and quality of its sweets also attracts large numbers of tourists and fans of pastry all over the world. If there is something typical and characteristic of Spanish culture is its gastronomy: typical, varied, tasty and worldwide recognized for being beneficial to health.

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The Oratory of San Felipe Neri is the only male religious congregation remaining in Alcalá. The interior of its simple church is adorned with carved figures by Gregorio Fernández and Pedro de Mena, as well as famous Baroque religious images. Its library contains over 8,000 volumes, including two incunabula.

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The Puerta de Madrid is a historical monument from 1788. It was the starting point of the road to Madrid.
In 1956 Stanley Kubrik filmed the military parade of his film ‘Spartacus’.

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There are 58 sculptures (abstract and representational) along the old city walls and the Vía Complutense. This museum is more than 2 kilometres long. It was inaugurated in 1993.

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Two thousand years ago, Romans founded the old city of Complutum.
You can visit the HOUSE OF HIPPOLYTUS, a roman school for Young boys.
(click on the picture to read more information and watch videos)

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Este texto también está disponible en español
Casa de Hippolytus is the first archaeological site of the Community of Madrid that was turned into a museum. Roman remains of the site-one of the best preserved of the region-were discovered in 1990 and able to visit in 1998.
Important discoveries in relation with Hispania were found decades ago among diverse excavations of the Roman city of Complutum. The most representative remain is Casa de Hippolytus, especially due to its mosaic and garden, also able to be visited since 1998.

Nor house, nor Hippolytus

Complutum, the most important Roman city of the center of the Iberian Peninsula at that time-two thousand years ago-, was so due to its strategic emplacement; in the middle of the way between Merida's surroundings and the areas of Catalonia and Murcia, where huge Roman settlements' were established. The road linking Emerita Augusta (Merida) and Caesar Augusta (Zaragoza) passed through Complutum, across today's Camino del Juncal, in Alcalá.

The archaeological excavations-even though some started as early as the sixteenth century by members of Cisnerian Univerisity -started in a systematized way during the eighties. Abundant remains of that time have been found in Complutum, great part of which are hold on the Museo Arqueológico Regional, in Plaza de las Bernardas.

The most important settlement has indeed a very curious name, Casa de Hippolytus, even though the building was not a private home-but a Collegium Iuvenuma, school for young boys -and the property does not belong to any Hippolytus -who in fact was the author of the wonderful mosaic preserved in there.

The specialists who named the house did it after a tradition, that of relate the title with the most relevant elements of the excavation site content. It is thought that in the Pre-Roman period the construction set up in that place, probably devoted to a water deity, was buried under a Roman tavernae-shop or business premises-during the time of the emperor Claudius, first century after Christ.

However, in the middle of the third century after Christ, a deep reform was undertaken in order to raise the Colegio de Jóvenes, one of the few notable of Hispania.

School for Young Aristrocrats

The institution was supported by the rich family los Annios, who constructed their family mausoleum 100 meters distance from Casa de Hippolytus. The school was dedicated to the cultural and religious education and also included ludic and sportive activities for the children of the governing class of the city, the aristocracy. The young, in a wide sense, since the majority of them were teenagers; although some individuals within the preserved name lists were even forty years old.

The building was in a vast property in Complutum suburbs and housed large gardens, whose remains have today a huge historical value. Along with Pompeya 's, they are the only untouched gardens preserved from the Roman period.

The house was a school -one of the few safeguarded today- hosting young people until the end of the fourth century and beginning of the fifth, when it turned into a necropolis, with its own Christian church. Several tombs of that period have also been discovered. Many of the constructed areas had a vaulted roof, known thanks to the structure remains used by Romans to build them-some ceramic bottles bottomless, the tubuli fictile, fitting together and making up the arch.

Public Baths

Other notable remains are located in the public baths, with pools of varying temperature. The first containing lukewarm water-or tepidarium-, the second full of hot water-or caldarioum- and a third, of cold water, the only which is still open-or frigidarium. The baths, a very important social ritual for Romans, were used in such order. Constructed with a highly water-resistant material such as green grinded bricks; the heating and hot water comes from adjacent cauldrons sending heat through pipes under the floor, similar to current underfloor heating.

There was also a room dedicated to the worship of the goddess Diana Cazadora, surely surrounded by images of Hercules and by the genius of the Youth, the most common in such kind of religious places. Diana was a deity related with mineral waters, and, as Romans considered such waters medicinal, their relationship with the spirits of Nature was venerated through them. In Casa de Hippolytus, there is a well with great quantity of sulfates.

Oriental Garden

One of the most relevant parts of Casa de Hippolytus is its garden, Oriental in character. In other words, the garden followed the same style of those designed in the Near East at the same period, which were considered by Romans as the height of refinement. The seeds and pollen analysis has shown that there were pine trees, holm and oak trees, but also lime and cedar trees from Lebanon. There were as well date palms, canes, jasmines and other exotic species. Likely, aromatic and medicinal plants could be founded within the enclosure.

Notwithstanding, in that fantastic garden not only were exotic plants. It also has pigeons and pelicans, loose and put in a cage. All these whims incurred heavy expenses due to its foreign character; not autochthonous species had to be imported from distant lands as Egypt and Mesopotamia.

The garden was not just an amusement area; having an essential role into the school functioning: where classes were given. The exact place is well-preserved, preserving its parade-shape, with rows of semicircular long stone benches called exedras. They had a total capacity from eighty to a hundred sites, and were used for both debates and discourses, or meals. Besides, it was a pleasant place for chats and leisure for both students and teachers. They were covered by tarpaulin-secured in a lattice or wooden gates situated behind the rows of benches- providing a dense shadow and a quiet place for conversation.

The Sea Mosaic of Hippolytus

The great jewel of Casa de Hippolytus is precisely, the mosaic of Hippolytus master, an artist probably from north Africa. The mosaic is set up in the central garden were the frigidariums-or cold water pool-was situated. Inside the pool, it is represented a boat with three oarsmen surrounded of a great number of Mediterranean fish and mollusk, like octopus. morays, dolphins, sea urchins, red scorpion-fish and others. The image supposed an important didactical element, so you should not forget that students lived far away from the sea, in the middle of the plateau.

Latrines

Another well documented and recreated room from Casa de Hippolytus is the latrines. In a large and cared space, there are mosaics and seats-that could be built-in or made in marble-leaning against the door; and a water channel under them, by which the water runs to avoid unpleasant smells. They also constructed sinks for the toilet (as current washbasins), built with a variety of materials, probably marble, with heads and arms richly decorated. A curiosity incomprehensible for us, due to our current costumes, is that Romans went to relieve themselves to latrines in group, as it was considered a collective activity.

Every stay in Casa de Hippolytus is perfectly documented, allowing to visitors a very precise image of how their elements were and how was the life lived in there, transferring you back seven hundred years back in time and meeting Roman antecessors of the current Alcalá.

Additional Information:

Useful information:

Address: Avenida Madrid, antigua nacional II, Km 28

Teléfono: +34 91 881 32 50

Access from Madrid

Renfe Cercanías railroads C-1, C-2 and C7A.

Bus nº 223 (departure from Avenida de América Interchanger).

Opening hours
Summer (May to Sept.):

Tue-Fri: from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. (Monday closed)

Sat and Sun: From 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. and from 5:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.

Winter (Oct to Apr.):

Tue-Fri: from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. (Monday closed)

Sat and Sun: From 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. and from 4:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.

Closed: Dec: 24, 25 and 31. Jan: 1 and 7

Ticket price: 1 €

Image gallery:

On video:

Where is it

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Este texto también está disponible en español Casa de Hippolytus is the first archaeological site of the Community of Madrid that was turned into a museum. Roman remains of the site-one of the best preserved of the region-were discovered in 1990 and able to visit in 1998.

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It is on one side of Plaza de Cervantes. It was a chapel and Miguel de Cervantes was baptized here on 9th October 1547.

It is now used for cultural exhibits.

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pila bautismal CAPILLA DEL OIDOR 26025.jpg

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It was built as a Cistercian feminine monastery by the Archbishop of Toledo, Bernardo de Sandoval y Rojas, in 1618.

Inside the church we see an elliptic plant covered by a majestic dome. It is considered one of the best Spanish Baroque buildings.

The Cistercian Museum has many pieces of highest value. Besides, it recreates the monastic life.

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The Salón Cervantes Theatre was built in 1888. We often go to plays and concerts there.

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The Corral de Comedias (Courtyard Comedy Theatre) was built in 1602. It is a small theatre, but there are lots of plays and concerts.

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This  was a monastery founded by Cardinal Cisneros for Franciscan nuns. It also received school girls and was a hospital for women in the 15th century.

The church was restored as an exhibition hall. It was named as the Interview House, commemorating the first meeting between the Catholic kings and Columbus.

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The Henares River, a Tajo tributary.

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ARCHAEOLOGICAL MUSEUM OF THE REGION OF MADRID

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ARCHAEOLOGICAL MUSEUM OF THE REGION OF MADRID

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It was a convent, but now it is the Archaeological Museum of the Region of Madrid.

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The Complutensian Polyglot Bible is the first printed polyglot of the entire Bible. It was initiated and financed by Cardinal Cisneros and published by Complutense University of Madrid. The texts were printed in Latin, Greek and Hebrew.

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Laredo’s Palace has rooms, towers and viewpoints, porches, terraces and gardens. Visitors will find rooms inspired by the Alhambra (plasterwork, tiles, coffering), by Pompeian frescos (paintings and painted fabrics) and by the Plateresque tradition, and with Modernist, Gothic, Renaissance, Nasrid and Moorish decorative motifs in general.

It is a museum dedicated to Cardinal Cisneros, and contains a documentation centre and a specialised library about the history of the University of Alcalá.

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Part of the medieval city walls are in the area around the Archbishop’s Palace.

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murallas y puerta de Burgos Alcalá image62.jpg

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Every November the Archbishop's Palace courtyard is used to stage the traditional performance of 'Don Juan', an outstanding play from the Spanish Golden Age.  Many people come to watch it in the open air.

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The construction was begun in the 13th century, including the Torreón del Tenorio (Tenorio's tower). The main façade is from the 16th century, and is the work of Alonso de Covarrubias.

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Cervantes was the most important writer of Spanish literature. He was born in Alcalá de Henares in 1547.

He had different jobs. He wrote Don Quixote in 1605.

He died on 23rd April 1616.

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Cervantes’s Square is the main square in our town.

Its name comes after the most famous Spanish writer called Miguel de Cervantes.
In the 13th century this square was called the Plaza del Mercado (Market Square) because it was the site of the weekly market and the site of all the important fiestas of the city.

There is a sculpture of Cervantes. There are trees and flowers. There is also a music bandstand.

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They are the main characters in Miguel de Cervantes’s book ‘Don Quixote’.

Their statues are outside Cervantes’s house.

Many people sit next to them to take photos.

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This is one of the houses of the famous writer: Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra.

He was born here. He wrote one of the most famous book in the world, ‘Don Quixote’.

The house is in Main Street, 48 near Cervantes Square. This house is a museum now with furniture and utensils from the 17th century. There is also a collection of old editions  and many translations of ‘Don Quixote'.

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CALLE MAYOR (MAIN STREET of the historical town center)

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CALLE MAYOR (MAIN STREET of the historical town center)

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This street is a busy commercial area now. It was conceived as a major artery in the 12th century.

Along the street we see porches that are supported by 19th-century pillars.

The houses in the main street (Calle Mayor) used to be two storeys high. The ground floor was occupied by businesses, while the top storeys were private homes.
There are many restaurants in this street.

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This is the University. It was founded by Cardinal Jiménez de Cisneros in early 16th century. It was the world’s first planned university city.

Many important people studied here. Its ‘Trilingual Courtyard’ so called because there were classes of Latin, Greek and Hebrew.

There are about 30.000 students now.

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Alcalá de Henares was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1998.

Its rich monumental heritage is formed by churches, convents and university buildings.

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Our school is called «Antonio de Nebrija».
He was a teacher at Alcalá's university and also a historian, poet and astronomer. He is best known for writing the first grammar of the Castilian language (Spanish language).

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Alcalá de Henares is a town in Madrid, Spain.

It’s in the east of Madrid.
There are about 194.310 inhabitants.