About Alpedrete

Alpedrete is a town in central Spain just outside of Madrid in the Sierra de Guadarrama mountains. It has a population of over 13,000 inhabitants and is a charming town with a relaxed atmosphere.  The locals here are incredibly friendly and helpful and have humoured us good naturedly with our clumsy and staggered Spanish and atrocious accents when dealing with us in bars, restaurants and shops. We are now comfortable enough to speak in Spanish as long as we are not given anything too complicated to comprehend.

There are many amenities in the locality including numerous supermarkets, bazaars, boutiques and pharmacies which stock everything you can get back home as well as some typically Spanish products and specialities. There is a fantastic library in the Centro Cultural displaying historical artefacts and tools from the town’s quarry and construction history and agricultural ledgers dating back over the past 200 hundred years. There is also a display of photographs of various members of the community from the 1950’s. There is an enormous leisure centre with full pitch sized football training grounds, basketball, tennis and squash courts, a multi-laned swimming pool, Jacuzzi, sauna, steam room and Turkish bath facilities.

 We recommend while here that you do as the locals do and eat what they eat, drink what they drink, frequent the bars and restaurants that they frequent and you won’t put a foot wrong. I was hesitant to do so in the beginning but having seen Wendy embrace the lifestyle and eating pig’s ears and enjoying the local beer I felt curious to give myself over to trying new things and am now loving it.  I’m still not brave enough to try the pig’s ears, they are a little too hairy for my palate. The portion sizes are huge. The typically Spanish thing to do is to have a long and large lunch during the day as your main meal and eat something light in the evening. Food is important to the locals and they relish every last bite. Even sharing a meal we still find ourselves leaving behind food which can almost feel wasteful. When ordering drinks you are also presented with a plate of tapas to share, usually consisting of some tortilla, a cold Spanish omelette, some chorizo con patatas or some fresh crusty bread with olive oil and anchovies or Iberico ham. These come free of charge every time you order a drink and by just paying for drinks you could happily feed yourself for the evening sampling the local delicacies.

With the town being so high up in the mountains we are constantly walking up or downhill, the plus side to this is not only do we get a good workout we also have some fantastic views of the surrounding Sierras. On Friday morning on our walk to the Los Fresnos School, through the backroads of the Mataespesa private housing estate we were greeted with some low hanging cloud at the top of the hill, not something you see every day!

Alpedrete is an extremely accessible town, you can walk anywhere in the town in about thirty minutes and despite the abundance of luxury cars in the area there are always people out walking. There is very little crime in the area and it is perfectly safe to walk around at night time. We can’t wait to explore more of what Alpedrete has to offer and promise to keep you all posted.