Visit: Museo Casa Natal de Cervantes

Lying just over twenty miles north of Madrid, the city of Alcalá de Henares (motto: ‘Ciudad del saber’) attracts thousands of visitors every year who relish the World Heritage Site status of the city centre, the famous ancient university and its literary associations. Alcalá boasts of being the birthplace of several famous Spaniards, including royals (such as Henry VIII's first wife, Catherine of Aragón), the painter Eugenio Lucas Velázquez and writers such as the Arcipreste de Hita (Juan Ruiz) and one Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, after whom the tourist train from central Madrid is named. Although it is widely held that the Golden Age writer and most renowned author in Hispanic letters only lived in Alcalá for the first few years of childhood, before moving to Valladolid, Alcalá celebrates the anniversaries of both his birth, with festivities during Semana Cervantina, and his death, when the king awards the Premio Cervantes at Alcalá's University.