Village
Municipality of the comarca of La Alcarria Conquense, in the province of Cuenca, on the shores of the great reservoir that bears its name, on the Guadiela, turned into a destination for bathing and boating and beside which runs the Ruta de las Caras, a footpath marked out by faces carved into the sandstone, some more than four metres high. Its church of la Asunción is a Gothic temple of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries with three naves and a four-stage tower designed in 1634, and twelve kilometres away, at the end of the Guadiela gorge, is the shrine of Nuestra Señora de los Desamparados, where the patroness stays eight months of the year.
Monument
A Gothic church of the 15th and 16th centuries with three naves and an imposing four-storey tower designed in 1634.
Monument
Former communal granary of Buendía (La Alcarria Conquense, Cuenca), also called La Tercia, dated to the 15th century and used to store grain and collect the tithe. It is built of small ashlar with a moulded cornice and a vaulted round-arch doorway; on the upper floor it retains a wooden coffered ceiling. Today it houses the municipality's Museo del Carro and Casa de la Cultura.
Monument
The Antigua Botica de Buendía, also known as the pharmacy of Señorita Asunción, is a museum housed in an emblematic building of this municipality in the province of Cuenca. It preserves the instruments and books of a 19th-century pharmacy: jars predating that century, earthenware cups and pots, apothecary utensils, prescription records and pharmacopoeias documenting the traditional trade of the pharmacist.
Monument
Of the medieval walled enclosure of Buendía, five access gates were originally preserved, of which the Puerta Nueva, the Puerta del Castillo and the Puerta del Convento still stand today. Of the remaining two, the Puerta del Sol has recently been rebuilt and the Puerta Calzada is undergoing reconstruction work.
Nature
The Buendía reservoir lies between the provinces of Cuenca and Guadalajara, on the course of the Guadiela river, a tributary of the Tagus. One of the largest in Spain, which has turned the town into a destination for swimming and boating, its dam was inaugurated in 1958, 78.10 metres high and with a capacity of 1,638 cubic hectometres over 8,194 hectares. Its waters bathe, besides Buendía, the towns of Alcocer, Alcohujate, Villalba del Rey and Las Gaviotas, and covered the former village of Santa María de Poyos and the Baños de la Isabela. Together with the Entrepeñas, Bolarque, Zorita and Almoguera reservoirs, it forms part of what is known as the Mar de Castilla, and along with Entrepeñas supplies the Tagus-Segura water transfer.
Nature
The Ruta de las Caras is a freely accessible trail located next to the Buendía reservoir, in Cuenca, lined with faces and other figures carved into the sandstone rock, some more than four metres high. The official route, also known as the Caras de Buendía, runs among pine woods and sandstone rocks and brings together eighteen sculptures and bas-reliefs by different artists, with heights ranging from one to eight metres. It is an easy route, estimated at around an hour's walk.
Monument
The sanctuary of Nuestra Señora de los Desamparados is located twelve kilometres from Buendía (La Alcarria Conquense, Cuenca), at the end of the Guadiela river gorge, in the Sierra de Enmedio area. It was built in the 16th and 17th centuries over a small earlier hermitage that housed the Cristo del Amparo, enlarged to receive the Virgen de los Desamparados after her apparition. The patroness remains at the hermitage eight months a year: she goes up in pilgrimage on the second Saturday of May and comes back down again in September, spending the other four months in the parish church. Formerly the area was a resting place for the people of Buendía, who even came to have brotherhood houses there.
Activity
Historical re-enactment of Buendía, a town in the district of La Alcarria Conquense (Cuenca), revived after 52 years of interruption and made part of the municipality's main festivities. It is held on the second Sunday of May, in procession, and commemorates the local legend according to which a Christian captain, commending himself to the Virgen de los Desamparados, defeated a Moorish army despite being outnumbered; his words of gratitude at the end of the battle are said to have given rise to the place name Buendía.
Food and drink
Home-made liqueur of Cuenca prepared by mixing brandy with coffee, burnt sugar, cinnamon and orange peel. It is served very cold at the end of meals and each family keeps its own proportion of ingredients.