Parla

The 20-minute Cercanías ride from Madrid ends with doors that open onto a platform half the height of a house. Parla station sits on a concrete viaduct above car showrooms and discount furniture barns; from here you look south across a grid of 1970s apartment blocks that still carries the faint smell of new plaster. The city—because it is a city, 130,000 people and its own postcode—was farmland until the Dictatorship decided Madrid needed breathing space. What grew afterwards is neither village nor capital, but something Britain never quite built: a purpose-built commuter town that worked.

Concrete, then chapels

Start downhill from the station, cross the footbridge that smells of crisps and diesel, and you reach Calle Mayor. The name promises old Spain; the architecture delivers glazed tiles, estate-agency flags and a Día supermarket where trolleys queue like airport luggage. Keep walking. After four traffic lights the street narrows, the pavement turns to cobble, and suddenly you’re in the original hamlet: one Roman culvert, two 16th-century walls, and the Iglesia de la Asunción whose bell tower pokes above the roofs like a periscope. The church is open most mornings; inside, the air is cool, the stone floor worn to ripples, and the guides are two widows who will explain the baroque retablo for the price of a coin to the light fund. Step back outside and the view is honest: to the left, medieval brick; to the right, a 12-storey council block painted the colour of swimming-pool tile. Parla never prettified the join.

Plaza de la Constitución, 200 metres on, functions as both living-room and market floor. Grandmothers park prams beside the stone fountain; at 11 a.m. the bars extend terraces far enough to force pedestrians into the roadway. Order a caña and you’ll be charged €1.20—still the price of a London supermarket sandwich. If you need stronger caffeine, Cafetería Lorca will produce a latte with twice the milk the Spanish normally tolerate; ask for “café con leche doble de leche” and they’ll understand you’re foreign, not ill.

Parks where the traffic thins

Parla’s planners were required by law to leave green space, and they did it generously. Parque del Egido, ten minutes east of the square, is 22 hectares of elm and olive threaded by cycle tracks that actually join up. On Sundays the town band rehearses under the pergola; the sound carries across the sandpits and outdoor gym where teenage boys compete with retired lorry drivers on the pull-up bars. Further north, Parque de la Comunidad de Madrid adds two lakes and a circumference of 3 km—handy if you’re jet-lagged and need to walk off airline food. Joggers share the path with parents pushing twins in three-wheeled buggies; nobody is in a hurry.

The parks also explain the micro-climate. At 680 m above sea-level Parla sits 200 m higher than central Madrid; the wind that scours the Meseta whistles through the tower blocks and keeps August temperatures two degrees cooler. In July that feels like mercy; in January it means frost at breakfast and T-shirt weather by noon. Come prepared in layers, especially if you intend to cycle—bike share exists, but the docking stations are solar-powered and shut down without warning after heavy cloud.

Eating without postcards

British expectations of Spanish food are usually set by Seville or San Sebastián; Parla offers neither gazpacho theatre nor Michelin stars. What it does well is neighbourhood cooking for people who eat lunch at 3 p.m. and dinner at 10. Casa Pepe on Avenida de Madrid serves a parrillada mixta (chicken, pork spare-rib, chips) that two hungry adults struggle to finish; cost €24 including bread and a carafe of house red sturdy enough to stain the tablecloth. Vegetarians survive on tortilla and the ubiquitous tomato-rubbed toast; vegans should head to Pizzería Roma, where the owner proudly imports Violife cheese and will bake your margherita with it even if the kitchen staff snigger. Markets are held Tuesday and Friday mornings in Plaza de Juan XXIII; stallholders will sell you a kilo of misshapen tomatoes for €1 and expect exact change.

Trains, tickets and the airport dash

Getting here is simple, leaving even simpler. Cercanías line C-4 departs Madrid-Puerta de Atocha every 15 minutes; journey time 22 minutes, price €2.15 single. Buy a ten-trip Metrobús ticket (€8.50) at any machine and the same card works on Parla city buses, useful if your hotel is out by the industrial estate. The last train back leaves Atocha at 23:30; miss it and night bus N705 crawls south for 50 minutes, dropping you at the same concrete viaduct now lit orange like a bypass bridge.

Parla’s single biggest virtue for Brits is proximity to Barajas. The airport lies 25 km north-east; a pre-booked shuttle costs €35 fixed, half what a black cab from central Madrid demands. Several UK travellers now stay here the night before an early flight: the Hotel Sercotel offers triple-glazed windows, breakfast from 5 a.m., and rates €55 if you haggle by email. The trade-off is ambience—reception smells of corporate disinfectant and the nearest bar is a 12-minute walk—but sleep is guaranteed.

When Parla parties

Ignore the guidebooks that claim the town has no traditions; they simply aren’t sold to visitors. Fiestas Patronales in mid-August turn Plaza de la Constitución into a fairground: foam machine for toddlers, dodgems fuelled by biodiesel, and a rock-covers band who think Oasis is still edgy. Processions start at 8 p.m. when the August heat loosens; bring a fan, or buy one from the Chinese bazaar for €2. Semana Santa is lower key—three brotherhoods, two drums, one trumpet—and the route is so short you can watch the whole parade while leaning against the same lamppost. The scent of beeswax and orange blossom drifts into the bingo hall next door; nobody thinks this odd.

Why bother?

Parla will never compete with Toledo’s swords or El Escorial’s cloisters. It offers instead a crash course in how modern Spain lives once the tour buses leave: the hybrid accents—Ecuadorian, Andalusian, Castilian—swapping jokes over cañas; the retired Madrileño who moved south for cheaper rent and now grows tomatoes on his balcony; the Saturday disco for over-65s that starts at 7 p.m. sharp so grandparents can collect grandchildren at 10. Visit for an afternoon, stay for the airport, and you’ll leave with a recalibrated idea of what “ordinary” means here. No postcards required—just an open Metrobús ticket and curiosity about the places that don’t make the calendars.