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| Glen meets Miguel de Cervantes |
On my Tuesday off, we decided to take a short day trip to
Alcalá de Henares, a small pueblo 35 minutes outside of the center of Madrid.
Alcalá is the birthplace of Cervantes; Glen and I started off our visit to one
of the Cervantes-themed museums and followed up with a visit of his original
birth-house. We then toured a 17th century playhouse, which, to each
of our surprises, was extremely interesting and worth the tour: the building
is built and structured as a square, but the seats and stage are built in a
circle. Despite minor restoration and upkeep, the playhouse still boasts its
original design.
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| barrels! |
However, apart from the historic sites in this UNESCO World
Heritage site, Alcalá’s tapa-culture was a large influence in Glen and my
decision to visit the town. Most towns in Spain offer tapas, instead of bread,
when you sit down and order a drink. Unfortunately, big cities like Barcelona
and Madrid do not follow this rule; however, Alcalá, being a tiny pueblo, does
indeed! The tapas at each restaurant vary and can either be the daily tapa of
the house or there will be a menu of a few classic tapas from which you can
choose. Our desire to café hop was further encouraged by the weather: Tuesday
was the second day I had seen rain in dry Madrid since I had arrived, and the
rain was a non-stop drizzle, so the idea of moving from shelter to shelter was
quite enticing.
Our first stop was Gringo
Viejo (c/ Ramon y Cajal, 8). The café was tucked away in a side street and
clearly a local site. They had a huge awning outside, so we were able to sit on
the patio and still be protected from the rain. For our tapas, we were served
two pieces of garlic and oil marinated chorizo with roasted potatoes and chips.
The tapa was small, but the two bites we did have were really delicious. The
next stop, Los Balcones de Alcalá (Calle
Cervantes, 2), was right off the main
street in Alcalá and had a great atmosphere: a quiet café with Sinatra playing
in the background. We were served to skewered tapas consisting of different
hams, sausages and potatoes. The relaxed jazz environment and reminders of
sleepless New York definitely made this our favorite stop.
We then made our way to La
Taberna de Rusty (c/ Tinte, 1): a rustic café with wooden barrels for
tables. There were ~10 different tapas for us to chose from: we ate a chicken
empanada and tostadas. We then went up a side street for our next stop and
found another café to hide from the rain. This place also had a list of tapas
to choose from; Glen and I each, independently, chose the exact same two tapas
from the 15 options: mushroom croquettas and a cheese plate. On our way out of
Alcalá we decided to stop for one last tapa at a place I had read about: Indalo
Tapas (c/ Libreros, 9) which was extremely underwhelming after our other four
stops.
Our tapa excursion was the perfect, relaxing and fun activity
for a rainy day, or any day for that matter. We left Alcalá with
thanksgiving-full stomachs and only slightly damp.
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