Santa e Insigne Catedral-Magistral de los Santos Justo y Pastor

The Archaeology and Palaeontology museum in Alcalá de Henares is running a temporary exhibition on the history of digging dinosaur bones, called “Dragon Hunters”. I was drawn to it because well… dinosaurs. Driving in the city centre is a nightmare, so I left the car in an easy-to-park area a bit away, and walked downtown.

I had been trying to see the cathedral of the Magistral Cathedral of Saint Justus and Saint Pastor Santa e Insigne Catedral-Magistral de los Santos Justo y Pastor, but it was always either locked, booked for events, or “closed to visitors”. This time around, I was able to finally see it – and it was honestly a bit underwhelming. Though I generally enjoy Gothic buildings, I guess I was so hyped after trying so many times, that reality did not live up to expectations. Furthermore, I dislike when places do not advertise that part of the visit is closed / unavailable, so I guess I’m still pretty out of luck with this one cathedral. I missed the chance to climb up the tower and see the views of the town due to construction, but oh well.

Legend has it that catholic Saints Justus and Pastor were martyrized in the year 304, near the Roman city of Complutum. In the year 414, a chapel was built to keep their remains in the place where the martyrdom happened. The current building was erected by architects Antón Egas and Enrique Egas in late Gothic and Renaissance styles around 1446. The tower, by Rodrigo Gil de Hontañón and Rodrigo Argüello, is Herrerian. The interior has three naves with pointed arches, and to one side stands the cloister, with access to the museum, and – when it is open – the tower. It was a bit of a bummer not to even be able to step into the open part of the cloister. Underneath the altar there is a crypt with a gold-and-silver urn with the remains of the Saints, and the stone where they were killed.

Afterwards, I continued on towards my real destination, the local Archaeology and Palaeontology museum Museo Arqueológico y Paleontológico de la Comunidad de Madrid, MARPA. They are currently running the exhibition Cazadores de Dragones (Dragon Hunters). The exhibit summarises the historical hits of palaeontology, starting with prehistoric and classical references and theories about them, such as a the phoenix having been inspired by Protoceratops skeletons, or the bones of giants being actually dinosaur fossils. This area has a few replicas and small statuettes – running from the originally-made ones to the newest reconstructions.

Exhibit entrance, protoceratops, corridor

The exhibit￹￹￹￹￹ name-drops a few of the big figures in dinosaur-digging history such as William Buckland, the man who described Megalosaurus as an antediluvian creature; Gideon Mantell, who tried to reconstruct an Iguanodon from a tooth (now in the Natural History Museum in London); Georges Cuvier, who proposed the idea of extinction, and named animals such as Megatherium, Pterodactyl or Mosasaurus; and Richard Owen, who “invented” the word “dinosaur”, meaning “terrible lizard” – though today we know that a lot of dinosaurs had more in common with birds than with reptiles, down to protofeathers and even feathers.

Archaeopteryx, titanosaur

The following section follows the “Bone Wars” – Charles Marsh and Edward Cope were two palaeontologists who raced through the Morrison Formation (Montana, USA) to discover up to 30 species of dinosaurs – they were not always honest in their competition, and it did not help that Cope messed up a reconstruction of an Elasmosaurus, placing the skull at the end of the tail. The Morrison formation was (is) in the middle of nowhere, and digging during the 19th century had its risks. This concept ties with the idea of “the adventurer” à la Indiana Jones, mentioning Roy Chapman Andrews and Barnum Brown, the man who excavated the first Tyrannosaurus. And then you turn a corner and are greeted by a replica of a T-Rex. Of course, I stayed a while here – trying to take pictures without the security guard in them.

Tyrannosaurus rex replica

After World War II, palaeontology hits moved from the USA to Mongolia and the Gobi desert, with new species being discovered every so often. Later, in the last years of the 20th century, the idea of “the avian dinosaur” arrived, and there is a replica of a Deinonychus, with screens showing recreations of the creature looking “like a lizard” and looking “like a bird”, feathered and all.

Titanosaur, therizinosaurus, eggs, deinonychus

Finally, there are the local dinosaurs: a tail and part of a foot from Qunkasaura pintiquiniestra, a nest from the Poyos Site (Guadalajara), and the star of the show – the original fossil holotype of Concavenator (Concavenator corcovatus), a theropod found in Cuenca. The fun part? The museum which holds the holotype, Museo de Paleontología de Castilla-La Mancha, bans pictures – so I took my sweet time with this. There is also a life-size reproduction, with colours tuned down to more realistic than the originally proposed blue and red.

Concavenator fossil and reproduction

Afterwards, I wandered around MARPA, mostly to go to the palaeontology room, as I have explored the museum extensively before. The palaeontology ward is relatively new, and it has quite a few nice reproductions and… even if I have explored that one too. I also dropped by the shop to get the exhibition book. Finally, I went back to run through the Dinosaur exhibit again, just because I could, before I headed home. I had thought I’d look for a nice restaurant for lunch, but nothing drew my attention.

My friend, whom I had not seen since January 2020 as the pandemic kept us apart, dropped by for a visit as she was in the area. Since the weather forecasting had not been promising, I had not booked anything, but given her a bunch of options to do. She was particularly taken by the castle in Manzanares El Real, a town in the Madrid area, so we drove there.

The palace-castle Castillo Nuevo de Manzanares El Real was built in the late 15th century as a replacement of the previous one by the House of Mendoza. The noble family was given control over the area the previous century, and after a hundred years living in the older castle, the new one was commissioned to Juan Guas, who designed the building in a on a Romanesque-Mudejar style. It was built in granite stone, with Isabelline Gothic decoration, mixing defensive / military, palatial and religious architecture. It was inhabited for about a century before it was abandoned. The castle was declared a Cultural Monument in 1931, and it has undergone several restorations. In 1961, it was used as shooting location for Charlton Heston and Sophia Loren’s “El Cid” film.

Considered one of the best-preserved castles in the Madrid area, the building it has four towers, six floors, and a central patio. It holds a collection of tapestries, and most of it can be walked. Unfortunately, the towers cannot be climbed, but you can walk around the walls, both in the terraced gallery and outside. It was a bit overpriced, but well-worth the visit.

Collage showing the castle. It is reddish with hard corners and rounded towers. The decoration is white and ornate.

We made a pause for lunch and tried the best wild asparagus (Asparagus acutifolius) that I have had in ages – just grilled with salt and lemon. We had some croquettes too.

Plate of perfectly-round croquettes and some crisps in the middle + plate of roasted green wild asparagus

As we had walked into the village for lunch, we only had to walk a little further to find the ruins of the original castle Castillo Viejo de Manzanares el Real. At the moment, only the foundations can be seen, though it is similar to the new one. The archaeological excavation started in the year 2022, but nothing much is known of it, except this one was an actual military fortress that predates the new castle. From there, the views of the new castle and the local church make a nice skyline of sorts.

Foundations of the old castle. Not much is seen, there is a sign reading "Old Castle Archaeological Excavation"

View of Manzanares el Real, showing modern roofs, the church tower, and the castle in the furthest background

It was still early in the afternoon, so I suggested stopping by Alcalá de Henares. I wanted to make a stop at a shop to check for something, but after a quick visit to the shopping centre, we moved on to what is, in my opinion, one of the most interesting buildings in town – the small palace house Palacete Laredo. Built in the Neo-Mudejar style, it is a bizarre combination of mosaics, moorish-like decorations, and vibrantly-coloured windows that somehow work, somehow. Though only about half of the building can be visited, I just find it bizarrely alluring. My friend loved it. Furthermore, the building has a few Complutensian Polyglot Bibles in display – the first polyglot edition of the Christian Holy book, published in the 16th century under the patronage of the Cardinal Cisneros, a key figure in local history.

Palacete Laredo: exterior and interior decorations + close up of the open bible, in Latin and Hebrew

We continued on, and walked round the city. We saw two back-to-back weddings at the cathedral Santa e Insigne Catedral-Magistral de los Santos Justo y Pastor – that meant we could not snoop into the cathedral, but we did see one of the brides arrive in a Rolls Royce.

Finally, we dropped by the archaeological museum Museo Arqueológico Regional, which has opened a very interesting new palaeontology ward – holding reproductions and real fossils of animals that used to live in the Madrid area, with a few coming from the palaeontological site of Cerro de los Batallones – most interestingly a Tetralophodon longirostris and a Machairodus aphanistus sabretooth cat.

Skeletons and skulls: mastodon, giant prehistoric giraffe that looks similar to a humongous goat, and sabretooth cat

We did a little more shopping afterwards, and eventually we drove off into the sunset… and the traffic. We ended up walking for 12.47 km (19078 steps), and driving for a good three hours, though M40 was so busy it actually felt like much much longer.