Logbook · 5 places

What to see and do in Ciruelos

What to see and do in Ciruelos (Mesa de Ocaña, Toledo): 5 places across monuments, nature, activities and curiosities, with a photo and a Google Maps location.

1 Villages · 2 Monuments · 2 Curiosities

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Spain › Castilla-La Mancha › Toledo › Mesa de Ocaña › Ciruelos

What to see and do in Ciruelos

Ciruelos
Village
Ciruelos is a municipality of Mesa de Ocaña, in Toledo, with 723 inhabitants (INE 2025), whose written history goes back to the year 803. In 1150 Alfonso VII granted the settlement, which would pass to Raimundo de Fitero, abbot of Fitero and founder of the Order of Calatrava, and in 1178 Alfonso VIII ceded it to that order, under whose rule it remained throughout the Middle Ages. In the church of Nuestra Señora de la Asunción, a 16th-century Renaissance building with a three-tiered bell tower, is the tomb of San Raimundo, who died there in 1163 and whose tomb was paid for by Charles III in 1768, when his body was transferred to the convent of Monte-Sión in Toledo. The village had several names, among them Perusa in the 9th century and Villarreal until 1916. In its streets, ¿Quién puede matar a un niño? was filmed almost in its entirety in 1976.
Church of Nuestra Señora de la Asunción de Ciruelos
Monument
A 16th-century Renaissance church, with a single nave and a Latin-cross plan thanks to two side chapels added in the 17th century. The tower, square in plan and built of limestone ashlar with a brick top, has three tiers: the first two from the late 16th century and the third from the 18th. The nave, covered by a barrel vault, houses a modern three-tier wooden altarpiece with paintings of the evangelists, an image of the Assumption and a crucifix. The two Baroque chapels, dedicated to San Isidro on the north side and to the Santísimo Cristo de la Misericordia on the south, are covered with false domes on pendentives decorated with plasterwork.
Tomb of San Raimundo
Monument
The tomb of San Raimundo is venerated in the parish church of Ciruelos (Mesa de Ocaña, Toledo), where the remains of Raimundo de Fitero rest, a Cistercian monk and abbot who founded the Order of Calatrava after defending the fortress of Calatrava against the Muslims on the orders of King Sancho III; he was its first grand master, and Pope Alexander III recognized the new military order. In old age, Raimundo retired to the town of Ciruelos, near Ocaña, where he died in 1163.
Ciruelos on Film
Curiosity
The film ¿Quién puede matar a un niño? (Who Can Kill a Child?), directed by Narciso Ibáñez Serrador and produced in 1975, though released in 1976, was largely filmed in Ciruelos. Practically all the scenes set in the island village of the plot were filmed in this town in Toledo, located about 250 kilometers from the sea and which then had 300 inhabitants. Since the story takes place in a coastal village, the sound of seagulls and the distant sea was added in postproduction to give continuity to the scenes filmed inland. The rest of the locations, all with a coastal setting, were filmed in Almuñécar, Menorca and Sitges.
A Village Documented since the Year 803
Curiosity
The written history of Ciruelos dates back to the year 803. In 1150 Alfonso VII granted the population to the nobles Pelayo Pérez de Frómista and Pedro Díaz Marrón, who in turn ceded it to abbot Raimundo de Fitero, founder of the Order of Calatrava; he died in the town in 1163 and his tomb is preserved in the parish church. In 1178 Alfonso VIII of Castile formally granted the town to the Order of Calatrava, under whose rule it remained from then on.