Highlights-Madrid (actually Alcalá de Henares)
My friend drove us to Alcalá de Henares. We visited the town, the university, the birthplace of Cervantes, and the Roman ruins of Complutum.
The Gap!
It’s not that big and the physics is wrong. You would fall forward into the gap, not backward.
Sancho and Quijote
Sancho isn’t impressed
Notable Items
Alcalá de Henares has the distinction of being the first “university town” in Europe (that is, the town was designed around the university). Before going into the town, we visited the ruins of Complutum, a Roman city of good size nearby, and the accompanying museum (Museo Arqueológico y Paleontológico, MARPA). The ruins, mostly ruined foundations with a few walls, are located outside the town. Apparently, even the Romans preferred the suburbs.
Inside the town, we visited the university, El Colegio Mayor de San Ildefonso, and the Casa de Cervantes. The university was originally named Universidad Complutense (from Complutum), but Alcalá lost control of the name when the university was closed from the mid-nineteenth century to 1977. There were multiple issues associated with the closure, but they always start with money. A university in Madrid “owns” the name now.
The Casa de Cervantes was light on details of Cervantes’ life. This may be because he wasn’t born there, didn’t live there, and didn’t write anything there. In fact, he never set foot in the house because the structure where people think he was born (iffy) no longer exists. Like hotels and bingo parlors with Lewis and Clark in the name in Montana and Idaho, if you can associate something in a Spanish town with Cervantes, you do it.