Community of Madrid hotels collection

Madrid was set down at the centre of the country, far from any sea, and its surroundings show it: a high plateau of holm oak where winter bites and summer burns. The Sierra de Guadarrama holds its snow into April and gives the capital its dry air; at its foot, the Escorial lines up its grey granite with the rigour of a monastery that is also a palace. On the other side, Aranjuez has laid gardens and strawberry fields along the Tagus, Chinchón keeps its round square of wooden balconies, and Alcalá de Henares, where Cervantes was born, its colleges. Between one town and the next, the plateau always comes back.