Convento de las Trinitarias

For four centuries, all of Spain knew that Cervantes lay behind this wall, yet nobody could say where. He was buried here in April 1616, plainly and without fuss, and during a later rebuilding of the convent his grave was lost. Efforts to find him again fell apart in the nineteenth century, until a research team in 2015 used ground radar and careful digging to uncover bone fragments now attributed to him. Conclusive proof still hasn't turned up.

He wanted to rest right here for a reason. The Trinitarians, a religious order, bought the freedom of Christian captives, and Cervantes had spent five years imprisoned in Algiers before being ransomed this way.

Someone else you know lies here too. Sor Marcela de San Félix, daughter of the playwright Lope de Vega, took her vows in this convent in 1621. When her father was buried in 1635, the funeral procession made a detour past this facade so she could say goodbye from behind a window.

Behind the brick wall across the way, a cloistered community still lives today. The church is free and opens around its services, and if you step inside you'll find the memorial and a second story.