TurismoLiterario .COM
TurismoLiterario.com
TurismoLiterario.com
Illustration of an arcaded street at dawn

BLOG · LISTS · SPAIN

5 Spanish cities for literary tourism

6-MINUTE READ

Spain is full of cities you can explore through their books and writers. Some still have the homes of great authors; others turn up again and again in novels, have their own literary routes or have made literature part of their identity.

If you fancy discovering a destination in a different way, these five cities are a good place to start.

Statue of Lazarillo de Tormes by the Roman bridge in Salamanca

Statue of Lazarillo de Tormes in Salamanca – Author: Emilio J. Rodríguez Posada

01 · Literary tourism in Salamanca

The university city of Lazarillo and La Celestina

Salamanca's relationship with literature reveals itself almost without your looking for it as you wander through the city.

One of its best-known spots is the Huerto de Calixto y Melibea, a small garden beside the old city wall whose name recalls the protagonists of La Celestina, by Fernando de Rojas.

Very close to the River Tormes there's another essential reference. The Roman bridge appears in one of the best-known episodes of Lazarillo de Tormes, and next to it a sculpture shows Lázaro with the blind man.

But Salamanca's literature doesn't stop at the classics.

Carmen Martín Gaite was born and studied in Salamanca, and the provincial city of her youth is very present in Behind the Curtains, one of her best-known novels. Today you can also find a sculpture of the writer in the Plaza de los Bandos.

And it's hard to talk about Salamanca without mentioning Miguel de Unamuno. He was a professor and rector of its university and lived for years in the old Rector's House, which is now the Unamuno House Museum.

Between novels, writers and places linked to their lives, there's more than enough to discover a different Salamanca as you walk its streets.

  • FERNANDO DE ROJAS
  • LAZARILLO DE TORMES
  • CARMEN MARTÍN GAITE
  • UNAMUNO

02 · Literary tourism in Barcelona

One of Spain's great literary cities

If we're talking about literary tourism in Spain, Barcelona had to be on this list.

The city has been part of the UNESCO Creative Cities Network as a City of Literature since 2015, but its relationship with books goes back much further.

Barcelona has been the setting for some of the best-known novels in Spanish literature. Carmen Laforet portrayed the post-war city in Nada; Mercè Rodoreda made the Gràcia neighbourhood part of the world of In Diamond Square; Eduardo Mendoza brought it to life in The City of Marvels; and Manuel Vázquez Montalbán had Pepe Carvalho walking its streets.

Then came stories that have made readers all over the world want to go looking for their settings.

It's hard to think of literary Barcelona today without mentioning Carlos Ruiz Zafón and The Shadow of the Wind. The Cemetery of Forgotten Books doesn't exist – sadly – but many of the real places that appear in the novel do, and today you can explore them by following our The Shadow of the Wind literary route.

Something similar happens with Cathedral of the Sea, by Ildefonso Falcones, which takes the reader to medieval Barcelona and, above all, to the basilica of Santa Maria del Mar.

The city also has routes devoted to books and authors, historic bookshops and a literary calendar that's hard to match.

And one date stands out above all the others: Sant Jordi, every 23 April, when books and roses literally take over the streets of Barcelona.

  • RUIZ ZAFÓN
  • FALCONES
  • RODOREDA
  • SANT JORDI
Cathedral of the Sea literary route - Barcelona

Basilica of Santa Maria del Mar, Barcelona

The Alhambra in Granada, overlooking the city

The Alhambra, Granada

03 · Literary tourism in Granada

Lorca, Washington Irving and the Alhambra

Granada is another of the Spanish cities recognised by UNESCO as a City of Literature, and it has more than enough reasons to be here.

The one figure you simply can't avoid is Federico García Lorca.

The writer was born in Fuente Vaqueros, a few kilometres from Granada, but spent much of his life tied to the city. Its streets, its squares, the Vega and the landscapes of the province are part of his biography, and of his work too.

Today there are various routes that let you follow in his footsteps around Granada and visit some of the places connected with his life. And if you want to round off the trip, you can head out to Fuente Vaqueros to see the house where he was born, now a museum.

But Lorca isn't the only writer to have fallen under Granada's spell.

Long before that, the American Washington Irving was captivated by the Alhambra and by the stories and legends that surrounded it. Out of that experience came Tales of the Alhambra, published in 1832.

Today you can follow part of that journey along the Washington Irving Route, which takes in various places in Andalusia connected with the writer and his time there.

Because few cities show as well as Granada that a landscape can also end up becoming literature.

  • FEDERICO GARCÍA LORCA
  • WASHINGTON IRVING
  • TALES OF THE ALHAMBRA

04 · Literary tourism in Madrid

Much more than the Barrio de las Letras

Madrid has been the setting, home and meeting place of so many writers that it's hard to know where to start.

The most obvious place is probably the Barrio de las Letras.

Within just a few streets, some of the great writers of the Spanish Golden Age lived or spent much of their lives: Cervantes, Lope de Vega, Quevedo and Góngora. Even today you can find literary quotations set into the pavement, monuments to writers and buildings directly connected with their lives.

One of the places that deserves a visit is the Lope de Vega House Museum, where the playwright spent the last years of his life and which you can now visit free of charge.

But reducing literary Madrid to the Golden Age would be selling it far short.

Benito Pérez Galdós made the nineteenth-century city the setting for much of his work. Emilia Pardo Bazán, Ramón María del Valle-Inclán and Federico García Lorca also left their mark on the capital.

And that relationship carries on in much more recent literature. Madrid appears, changes and almost becomes another character in novels by writers such as Almudena Grandes, who made its neighbourhoods, its streets and its history a fundamental part of her fictional world.

There are literary routes devoted to different periods and writers, bookshops with decades of history, cafés linked to old literary gatherings and a huge number of places that let you discover Madrid with books as your guide.

  • BARRIO DE LAS LETRAS
  • LOPE DE VEGA
  • GALDÓS
  • ALMUDENA GRANDES
Federico García Lorca statue - Golden Age route through Madrid - Literary tourism

Statue of Federico García Lorca in the Plaza de Santa Ana, Barrio de las Letras

Don Quixote at the Cervantes Birthplace Museum in Alcalá de Henares - Literary tourism

Statue of Don Quixote outside the Cervantes Birthplace Museum in Alcalá de Henares

05 · Literary tourism in Alcalá de Henares

The city of Cervantes

Just over 30 kilometres from Madrid is a city that has made its literary heritage one of its hallmarks.

And here there's one undisputed star: Miguel de Cervantes.

The author of Don Quixote was born in Alcalá de Henares in 1547, and today you can visit the Cervantes Birthplace Museum free of charge: a recreation of a sixteenth- and seventeenth-century home on the spot where the family house has traditionally been placed.

But Cervantes's presence can be felt all over the city.

The Ruta Cervantina takes in some of the places linked to his life and work, from the church where he was baptised to the printing house where La Galatea was published. There are also guided tours and routes devoted specifically to the writer.

And although Cervantes steals much of the limelight, he isn't the only literary figure connected with Alcalá. Quevedo, Calderón de la Barca and Lope de Vega were also linked to its historic university.

Literature also still plays a very visible role in the city. Every year, the Paraninfo hall of the University of Alcalá hosts the presentation of the Cervantes Prize, the most important award for literature in the Spanish language.

A city where it's quite hard to walk for long without bumping into a writer.

  • CERVANTES
  • DON QUIXOTE
  • CERVANTES PRIZE
  • UNIVERSITY OF ALCALÁ

TO WRAP UP

Five cities to get you started, but many more to discover

Salamanca, Barcelona, Granada, Madrid and Alcalá de Henares are just five examples.

Literature has left its mark on many other places in Spain: cities that inspired novels, villages linked to writers, landscapes that became settings and destinations that have learned to tell their own story through books.

And that list will keep growing.

Because once you start looking for the stories hidden behind places, it's pretty hard to stop.

Recommended articles

Keep reading

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *