Alcalá de Henares Half-Day Tour

It was cancelled with no notice from Viator or local company! I had gone to local office 2 days early and said I don’t have phone service and gave my email address instead. Again, no contact about cancellation.

Very entertaining tour of Alcalá de Henares and its history accompanied by guides Lola and Laura, who took pains to provide us with a very nice day, which included a visit to an artisan winery with a tasteful wine tasting. Highly recommended.

Had such a great time on the wine and country tour. Angel and Fatima were wonderful guides and ensured everyone on the tour felt comfortable. They described everything very well in English and we learned a great deal - about wine tasting from the hostess at the winery (Bodega Cuarto Lote - Fantastic wine/pairings!) and the history of the 2 towns we went to. Would definitely recommend for a great day trip!

This trip is advertised as around 5 hours long from 930 to 1430. Instructions were to go to the Naturanda office. We arrived there at 915. The lady at the office seemed to have no idea what tour we were going on and then tried to confirm a different tour this was despite us booking 3 days prior (you can book up to 24 hours in advance). She repeatedly said she could not get hold of the guide no apology no nothing. Then at around 940 she said to follow her and we walked all the way up to gran via where she flagged down a minibus that had 4 people already on it. The guide was friendly but her English wasn't great despite this being an English language tour and she regularly used the other guests (who happened to also speak Spanish) to translate. We then spent a good 45 minutes driving to Acala. On arrival the guide talked about a couple of buildings but in a completely random way with no real context and she could not answer basic questions another guest on the tour asked. The tours suggests you visit 3 places which to me would suggest you go inside. No other than going into a very boring museum in an old house that is free you don't go inside any buildings. After just over an hour we had to leave walking a very small route with very little information. On the website the bodega it appears you visit for the wine is Bodegas Cuarto Lote (you can see it in pictures) which would only be a 25 minute drive from Acala. Instead we drove to Bodegas Perla which took over an hour. On arrival. It was pretty unorganised we had a very short tour where one guest fell down the stairs into me (little to no care was shown to this poor person) thankfully she was OK just shaken. We tasted a white wine whilst doing the tour which was tasty. We were then taken to taste two other wines at a table. The bodegas guide began pouring one of the wines then said she would be back in 2 minutes and went to serve in the shop. At this point our guide started pouring the other wine. She put far too. Much in the first half of the tables glasses by the time she got to my wife rather than having the equivalent of a small glass of wine she was given a mouthful. Queue the guides concern and she began taking wine from a glass that had a large glass of wines worth and pouring it into her glass. This was incredibly awkward. After waiting some time for the winery guide to return to actually explain the wines people just started drinking and after 20 minutes we started as well as it was getting warm. The guide returned after 25 minutes and only then explained the wines that some had finished. The wine was good but we were clearly not the priority and for a wine tasting this was very poor. We then had another hours drive back to Madrid so for a 5 hour tour we spent almost 3 hours of it on the bus. Completely bizarre a total waste of 89 euros each and a waste of our time on holiday. The only positive was the other guests were nice and chatty. The wine was also nice so we bought a couple of bottles. We had a go city card so didn't pay directly for this (albeit the card is expensive) do not waste your time with this tour it was appalling. Unless that is you don't like walking/ spending time on the things you have paid to see or simply prefer sitting on a hot minibus for hours of your day.

We loved the visit, Alcalá de Henares was beautiful and even more so accompanied by our fantastic guide, a day to remember!