Nature, wine tourism and gastronomy; castles, churches and centuries-old streets; corners of peace That is what the eleven Villas of the Community of Madrid offer, an alternative to the big city. We will go through them starting with Manzanares El Real, 50 minutes by car north of the capital, and continue clockwise to see, in addition to Manzanares el Real, Rascafría, Buitrago del Lozoya, Patones de Arriba, Torrelaguna, Nuevo Baztán, Villarejo de Salvanés, Colmenar de Oreja, Chinchón, Navalcarnero and San Martín de Valdeiglesias.
An imposing castle next to the granite mass of La Pedriza. A medieval bridge under which the Manzanares runs, which gives the town its name and feeds the neighboring Santillana reservoir, a refuge for migratory and aquatic birds. And in the background, the Sierra de Guadarrama National Park. This is the business card of Manzanares El Real, one of the towns in the mountains preferred by the people of Madrid for their Sunday getaways.
The very well preserved castle of the Mendoza family, one of the great noble families of Castile, began to be built in 1475 and is today the best preserved and most visited in the entire Community of Madrid. From the Juan Guas gallery, pure Elizabethan Gothic, you can see the Santillana reservoir and the Sierra. In its streets, the ruins of the old castle, from the 14th century, await us; the Cañada Real bridge, of medieval origin, and the church of Nuestra Señora de las Nieves, from the end of the 15th century.
The people of Segovia who founded this town in the Middle Ages had a good eye: they chose one of the most beautiful places in the Lozoya Valley, near the Peñalara peak (the highest of the Madrid mountains, at 2,428 meters). Today, as then, nature rules there: in Rascafría (precise name, because it is a place where winter presses and summer does not burn) it is mandatory to explore its surroundings.
Take note of the green path of Rascafría, the leafy Finnish forest, the Los Batanes mill or the path of Los Batanes, which begins at the Perdón bridge, from the first half of the 18th century and located a few steps from the royal monastery of Santa María de El Paular, a charterhouse founded in 1390. The architectural complex (church, monastery and palace) houses a large collection of works by the Italian painter Vicente Carducho (1576-1638).
Buitrago del Lozoya belongs to the association of The Most Beautiful Towns in Spain, and by faith it deserves it. From the highway, its view is most photogenic: the town, which rests on a promontory on the Lozoya River, is protected by 800 meters of wall in a good state of conservation, with the Mendoza castle as a protector. On one side of the river, the natural viewpoint reserves us the best view of the set of cobbled streets, with its other two medieval jewels: the Clock Tower, 16 meters high, and the church of Santa María del Castillo, which preserves the coffered ceiling from the 15th century that covers the main altar.
On the high wall (the one that does not face the river) siege machines and weapons from the Middle Ages are exhibited. Next to the ground floor, the park of the Villa gives us a break. On the ground floor of the Town Hall -a new headquarters is already planned- the Picasso Museum "Eugenio Arias Collection" awaits us, where posters, ceramics, lithographs and drawings are exhibited that the painter from Malaga gave to Arias, a native of Buitrago and who for 26 years He was a barber and friend of the artist in his French exile.
On the border with Guadalajara, this picturesque town, which for centuries had its own "kings" -from the Middle Ages until well into the 18th century- is also one of the favorite destinations for Madrid's getaways. Perched between cliffs, in Patones de Arriba there are fewer neighbors than restaurants, always crowded on weekends and holidays; so many come here that, for a few months, access by private vehicle to non-residents has been prohibited -few, we repeat-, and now you have to walk up from its brother Patones de Abajo, a couple of kilometers away, on the plain . Out of those days, glory.
The traditional houses – slate masonry walls, pebble floors, wooden pillars and beams, walls covered with lime and sand mortar – watch over each other in narrow cobbled streets, giving shape to one of the best examples of traditional mountain architecture of the entire Central System, where the church of San José stands out (now the tourist office), a 17th century bell tower turned into a temple in 1753. The environment, no less spectacular: slate mountains, pools where otters, frogs and the kingfisher, and skies patrolled by peregrine falcons and griffon vultures.
Muslim for centuries and Christian since 1085, Torrelaguna hides some of the lesser known secrets of the Community of Madrid. Halfway between the Sierra Norte and the countryside, and bathed by the waters of the Jarama, the town began to prosper since the arrival of important families in the fourteenth century. Among its promoters was Cardinal Cisneros, from Torrelagunense in 1436, Archbishop of Toledo and twice Regent of Castile, between the death of Isabel la Católica and the accession to the throne of her grandson, Carlos I.
Of its noble palaces and houses, it is worth mentioning the Salinas palace, the Arteaga palace, the Vargas house and the houses on Calle de la Cava. Of some, only the façade remains, but they testify to the ancient wealth of a population in which the Plaza de la Montera stands out, with its two manor houses from the 17th and 18th centuries. The beautiful Plaza Mayor houses, in addition to traditional bars and grills, the Town Hall, a Renaissance building founded by Cisneros in 1514, and the church of Santa María Magdalena, one of the most impressive Gothic churches in all of Madrid. It should be remembered that Torrelaguna rose to fame for being the main setting in which the film Todos lo sabe, by Asghar Farhadi, starring Javier Bardem, Penélope Cruz and Ricardo Darín was developed.
Suddenly, in the fertile plains to the southeast of Madrid, a transplanted setting from northern Europe appears in our path. This is Nuevo Baztán, a unique town, created between 1709 and 1713 by the Navarrese politician Juan de Goyeneche, who commissioned its design to the prominent architect José Benito de Churriguera and populated it with Castilians, Navarrese from the Baztán Valley and Flemish and French artisans . Thus was born a modern industrial settlement that produced textiles, paper, glass, and liquor, among other goods.
It is structured around two large Churriguera buildings: the baroque Goyeneche palace, and the adjacent church of San Francisco Javier, Herrerian style and with two 27.5-meter-high towers. The rest of the layout revolves around the Plaza del Secreto, the church and the Fiestas. We say goodbye to this town surrounded by holm oaks, almond, oak and olive trees at the Cuarto-Lote winery, located in a contemporary farmhouse in Goyeneche: it offers tastings of oils, and white, rosé and red wines from the DO Vinos de Madrid.
The keep is the only vestige of the castle of Villarejo de Salvanés, founded in the 13th century by the order of Santiago in its advance towards the Muslim south. Unique in Castilian medieval military architecture, it houses a Museum of the Spanish Tercios. From its terrace, 22 meters above the ground, you can see the entire town and the fields that surround it.
Next objectives: the parish of San Andrés, erected between the 14th and 16th centuries; the convent of Nuestra Señora de la Victoria, built in gratitude to the Virgin for the defeat of the Turks in Lepanto; and the Casa de la Tercia, a sober civil building completed in 1545 by the order of Santiago, and the current site of an ethnographic museum. The old hospital (second half of the 18th century) and the curious Museum of Cinema also deserve attention.
It boasts vineyards and centuries-old cellars arranged in underground caves dug under the houses in the renowned local limestone, where wine was stored in large clay jars. Its Stone Museum preserves a reproduction of a traditional jar oven, and we can visit old and modern wineries. The artisan oil and cheese do not disappoint either.
In Colmenar de Oreja there are farmhouses from the 17th to the 19th centuries; a church-fortress, that of Santa María la Mayor, with 800 years behind it, and convents such as that of the Encarnación del Divino Verbo (1685), together with a church and the palace-house of the Count of Colmenar. The beautiful porticoed Plaza Mayor rests on uneven ground, supported by a gallery more than 70 meters long, the Zacatín arch, under which the stream of the same name flows. You should not miss the Ulpiano Checa Museum, a local 19th century painter, famous for his historicist oil paintings.
With its main square as the main square, Chinchón awaits, a town that has been the setting for numerous films and television series, such as the masterful Chimes at Midnight, by the genius Orson Welles, who was fascinated by the rich architecture and traditional flavor of one of the most monumental towns in the Community of Madrid, characteristics that it has largely preserved until today. This square has been the setting since the end of the 15th century for markets, religious ceremonies, theatrical performances and bullfights. The church of Nuestra Señora de la Asunción keeps and displays a painting by Goya, The Assumption of the Virgin. The clock tower, the remains of a church destroyed in the War of Independence, gave rise to the saying “Chinchón has a tower without a church and a church without a tower”.
Other points of interest are the tourist hostel, a monastery in the 17th century; the baroque house of the Chain; and what remains of two castles: that of Casasola (15th century), and that of the Counts (second half of the 16th century), located on an elevation that provides great views. And at the table? Roasted suckling pig, lamb or kid in a wood oven, game, stews, wine and simple pastries.
As always, Navalcarnero has been one of the towns that has supplied the capital with grain and wine. And today, even with the highway just a step away, it continues to maintain its flavor of yesteryear. The Plaza de Segovia invites you to have a local wine while contemplating its irregular plan, porticoed on three sides. In this way, we unite the two tourist hooks of the town: wine and historical heritage: in the same square stands the parish church of Nuestra Señora de la Asunción, a palimpsest of styles that began to be written in stone 500 years ago.
An interpretation center located in an old farmhouse teaches us about the local production of wine, and wineries such as Muñoz Martín or Andrés Díaz offer guided tours and tastings. Parks such as San Sebastián, manor houses (Cultura and La Lonja), hermitages such as San Roque and squares such as Teatro and San José complete the route through Navalcarnero, the scene in 1649 of the wedding of Felipe IV and Mariana of Austria.
Our route through the towns of Madrid ends in this town bordering the provinces of Ávila and Toledo. On its outskirts is the Enchanted Forest, a rich botanical garden with more than 300 plant sculptures. Very close, between pines and holm oaks, the San Juan reservoir awaits us, with its small beaches and water sports. And then the wine, wealth of a town lying between vineyards and cellars. A piece of advice: accompany it with a roast and some scrambled potatoes.
The most striking thing about San Martín is the castle of La Coracera, built in 1434 for Don Álvaro de Luna, a patron of King Juan II. Well preserved, it admits visits; From the top of its keep, you can see the Sierra de Gredos and the rich vineyards, which the Benedictine monks began to plant in the Middle Ages. The other two notable buildings are the church of San Martín Obispo, pure Herrerian sobriety, and the bullring, inaugurated in 1856 and one of the oldest in the community.
