Yesterday was a very exciting day for me. My friend Maria and I went to Alcalá de Henares where, as you may remember from the very first post in this series, Miguel De Cervantes was born. It’s about an hour’s drive from Toledo.
And as you can imagine, the intrepid knight is as big a celebrity (if not bigger!) in Alcalá as he is in Toledo. The town is littered with statues of his genius creator.
Statue of Cervantes in a local park
The house, where Cervantes was born, has been turned into a museum. Entry is free! And right outside the gate, I discovered, to my great delight, that DonQ and Sancho P. have taken up the national sport religiously practiced by all the country’s males in their mature years: congregating on public benches, gossipping and watching the world go by. How could I resist from joining them?!?
Delighted me! Cervantes’s Birth House in the background
I remain utterly star struck as I hit the “publish” button… it’ll take me a while to recover from this unexpected in-the-bronze encounter, I can tell you.
There will be more from Alcalá de Henares, as soon as I get my act together 🙂
[To see all posts in the Weekly Don Quixote series, click here]
Lady Of The Cakes 
It looks you fit right in ;-). Free access in this great economy? Spain is already in the abyss.
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True, but their cultural heritage is very important to them, and also they get money from UNESCO (Alcalá, like Toledo is a World Heritage Site), and this subsidises free/low cost access to places like this.
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That is great. Just not used to it. But I think it is good to make museums/art places accessible for everyone. Especially for children.
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It’s love, clearly!
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Oh it is… I’ll have to decide between one of the two 😦
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Ha ha! Lovely. But they might be a bit old for you. Amazing how an author is so revered. But I guess it’s comparable to Shakespeare’s standing in the UK.
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My God, you really do see them everywhere! Or do you seek them out specifically? Because I do not remember such a DQ invasion while I was out & about Spain 🙂 Also, poor Sancho…looks so dejected…
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I do see him everywhere as my brain’s tuned into him now… when I worked for Coca Cola, I saw Coke logos everywhere, lol. But he would be difficult to miss in the La Mancha region.
Maria cuddled up to Sancho, and I think it made him feel better 🙂
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Love it! 🙂
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Well, I’m star struck. Did you celebrate with cake? And I love that it’s free. Not much is free in the US so when I first started going to museums in London I kept trying to pay the poor information person. They looked at me like I was insane.
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Don’t mention the C-word. That was not a success. I’m planning to write it up for tomorrow…
They weren’t always free in London. I remember when that policy came in, but don’t ask me exactly what year that was 😉
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Looking forward to your write up and you keep telling me I can’t ask you certain questions 🙂
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