Alcalá de Henares

Country: Spain · 203,208 inhabitants

Attractions

Wikivoyage

Alcalá de Henares is a city 30 km northeast of Madrid. Its attractive medieval centre, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is full of interesting old buildings. It's a university and religious centre, and famous people linked to the town include Miguel Cervantes (baptized and almost certainly born here), author of Don Quixote, Cardinal Cisneros (refounder of the University of Alcalá, the current Complutense University of Madrid) and Katherine of Aragon (born here), first wife of England's King Henry VIII. Alcalá is easily visited as a day-trip from Madrid, and because it's so close to Madrid Barajas Airport it makes a good first or last night stop on a tour of northern Spain.

Wikipedia

Alcalá de Henares (Spanish pronunciation: [alkaˈla ðe eˈnaɾes] ) is a Spanish municipality of the Community of Madrid. Housing is primarily located on the north bank of the Henares. As of 2018, it has a population of 193,751, making it the region's third-most populated municipality.

Predated by earlier hilltop settlements (oppida) and the primitive Complutum on the left bank of the Henares, the new Roman settlement of Complutum was founded in the mid 1st century on the right bank (north) river meadow, becoming a bishopric seat in the 5th century. One of the several Muslim citadels in the Middle March of al-Andalus (hence the name Alcalá, a derivative of the Arabic term for citadel) was established on the left bank, while, after the Christian conquest culminated c. 1118, the bulk of the urban nucleus returned to the right bank. For much of the late middle-ages and the early modern period before becoming part of the province of Madrid, Alcalá de Henares was a seigneurial estate of the archbishops of Toledo. Under patronage of Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros, Alcalá was transformed into a college town in the 16th century in the wake of the creation of the University of Alcalá.

Its historical centre is one of UNESCO's World Heritage Sites.