Madrid & the 7 UNESCO World Heritage Cities 2026-27

A journey into the heart of Spain that takes in the 7 cities under UNESCO protection and listed as "World Heritage Sites", combined with a visit to the splendid capital, with free time to explore it further in one of its magnificent museums, or to discover and experience the essence of the city.

The Plaza Mayor of Salamanca.

The Plaza Mayor of Salamanca was built to create a space for socialising, intended to serve as a place of debate and reflection. A Euro-Baroque square, this work, financed by the city council, was designed by the architect Alberto de Churriguera, who began work in 1729. Yet it was only 180 years later, in 1935, that it was declared a National Monument, having been considered the most ornate, well-proportioned and harmonious square of its era. As Unamuno put it, the Plaza Mayor of Salamanca is "a heart full of sunshine and air", the place where the sun heals, the place of a thousand tongues, a luxury and a delight for the eyes and the senses.

Alcalá de Henares: in Roman times the city was called Complutum and stood a few kilometres from modern-day Alcalá de Henares. It was one of the most important cities on the Iberian Peninsula, as the remains it still preserves today demonstrate. It enjoyed 400 years of splendour under the rule of the Empire, above all thanks to the use of the River Henares, the new roads and the agricultural resources. After the Romans came the Moors, who in 850 built the castle of Al-Qal'at en Nahar, from which the name Alcalá derives. Its importance as a stronghold of the Tagus valley during the Christian Reconquest helped endow the city with new buildings and a city wall. Within it, Jews, Muslims and Christians lived side by side, each group with its own area of influence inside the fortification. In the 13th century Alcalá became a seigneury of the archbishops of Toledo, who built the Archbishop's Palace and brought the city great importance through its thriving economic activity. In 1293, Sancho IV granted Alcalá the privilege of creating a "Studium Generale", recognising its status as a university city. But its golden age came with Cardinal Cisneros, who founded the Complutense University in 1499. Although the teaching initially had a markedly religious orientation, focused above all on theology and ecclesiastical education, the University soon developed the humanities, law and literature thanks to figures of the calibre of Quevedo, Saint Ignatius of Loyola and Saint Thomas of Villanova. In 1836, however, the faculties were transferred to Madrid. After a period of decline, in the mid-20th century the city's university life returned to its former splendour with industrialisation.

The Royal Monastery of Santa María de Guadalupe is a monastic complex in the municipality of Guadalupe, in the Spanish province of Cáceres, in the autonomous community of Extremadura. It was the country's most important monastery for more than four centuries, and one of the most important shrines in Europe. In 1955 it was granted the title of minor basilica. Today it is protected as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The monastery came into being in the late 13th century, when a shepherd from Cáceres named Gil Cordero discovered on the banks of the River Guadalupe a statue of the Virgin Mary, apparently hidden by local inhabitants during the Moorish invasion of 714. A chapel was built on the site of the discovery. King Alfonso XI of Castile, who visited the chapel more than once, invoked Santa María de Guadalupe during the Battle of Río Salado in 1340. He later attributed the victory to the Virgin's intercession, declaring the Church of Guadalupe a royal sanctuary and taking on the costs of its renovation. In 1389 the Hieronymite monks began to live in the monastery, making it their principal seat. Building work continued under the direction of the order's first prior, and in 1474 Henry IV of Castile was buried at Guadalupe, near his mother. The monastery has many ties with the New World, where Our Lady of Guadalupe is greatly venerated in the Mexican Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe and throughout the country. It was here, in Extremadura, that Christopher Columbus made his first pilgrimage after the discovery of the Americas in 1492, and it was in this place that he first gave thanks to heaven for the discovery. Even after the monks founded the Monastery of El Escorial, much closer to the capital of the kingdom, Madrid, Santa María de Guadalupe retained royal patronage. It remained the most important cloister in Spain until the secularisation of the monasteries in 1835. In the 20th century the monastery came back to life thanks to the Franciscan order and to Pope Pius XII, who declared it a "Minor Papal Basilica" in 1955. The monastery, whose architecture developed over many centuries, is still dominated by the templo mayor, or main church, built by Alfonso XI and his immediate successors in the 14th and 15th centuries. The square chapel of Santa Catalina also dates from the 15th century and is famous for a group of ornaments from the 17th century. The 16th-century reliquary chapel connects Santa Catalina with the Baroque sacristy of 1638-47, richly decorated and home to a series of paintings by Francisco de Zurbarán. Behind the basilica lies the Camarín de la Virgen, an octagonal Baroque structure of 1687-96 adorned with stucco work and nine paintings by Luca Giordano. The jewel of this sumptuous room is a throne containing the statue of the Virgin from which the monastery takes its name. Other notable structures include the Mudéjar cloister of 1389-1405, with its magnificent Plateresque portal; the late Gothic cloister of 1531-33; and the new church, commissioned by one of Columbus's descendants in 1730. The palace of Isabella of Castile of 1487-91, however, was demolished in 1856.