Found in Alcala de Henares on a December walk

The birthplace of Cervantes was an excellent place to pitch up in on a puente day. Four teachers of English, too poor and distressed to go any further than our abonos and a few euros could stretch, we spent the afternoon in this fascinating town which is about 5o minutes out of Madrid on the suburban train. We were excited to discover it was one of those double decker trains and of course we sat upstairs!

Arriving in Alcala, our lunchtime stopping off point was a bar that served vermut on draught for a bargain 1 euro and 90 cents and provided hearty free tapas too. This is how we survive in Madrid. The drinks are cheap and we get fed too! I am living a student life and not that of a teacher as I had planned!

Alcala is an historic town - the home of Spain's oldest university - and there are some very beautiful buildings, as well as an attractive town square dedicated to Cervantes. We wandered the streets, taking photos and admiring the architecture and the sight of storks nesting high above the streets. The shops were putting up their decorations and bringing out their belenes

Alcala deserves a return visit for the birthplace museum and some interesting art galleries and museums. The town is now famous for being the site of the memorial for the victims of the Madrid train bombings. Located alongside the railway station, it's sobering place to remember the 191 lives that were cut short by terrorists by rucksack bombs on 11 March 2004.

Walking Madrid

I have explored two areas of Madrid in the last few weeks to discover some of its history and literary highlights. The first walk was around the Barrio de las Letras (the District of letters), spotting plaques and street signs to some of the great Spanish writers. I like the way that many writers have been immortalised in the tiles outside pubs and bars. On my walk with Moira, which was supposed to be around 30 minutes and took nearer to six hours, we found some great stopping off places.

A favourite is Las Cueva de Sesamo which is an underground den of a bar with literary inscriptions on the walls to savour and translate. Beethoven above the omnipresent pianist, a bit of Proust above our heads and plenty more. We drank bottled beer and breathed in the tobacco fumes and were breathless bohemians! We left to find a queue snaking its way along Calle de Principe. This is clearly a hot spot on a Saturday night bar crawl.

From here we went to where the legendary bravas sauce was invented and I was able to explain why there are trick mirrors set into the wall of the restaurant. They commemorate a classic play by the writer Valle-Inclan (there is a plaque high on the wall of course). This area around Pasaje Matheu is a web of bars and cafes and there is much to detain the literati! If we had entered every bar that claimed to be a "home" for Hemingway we would have been both broke and legless.

There are signs of literary culture all around us in these streets - from murals to words on the pavements in Huertas to writers' street signs to memorial monuments. We discovered the house of Lope de Vega - who married three times and was ordained late in life and was a prolific playwright and poet, the home of Cervantes and his final resting place, the churches they frequented, the theatres they patronised. Now I need to find out more. This is just the beginning.