Logbook · 9 places

What to see and do in La Guardia

What to see and do in La Guardia (Mesa de Ocaña, Toledo): 9 places across monuments, nature, activities and curiosities, with a photo and a Google Maps location.

1 Villages · 5 Monuments · 2 Curiosities · 1 Food and drink

How far each place is from the centre of La Guardia

House of the Jaenes Family 200 m
Church of la Asunción de La Guardia 300 m

Towns near La Guardia

What to see in El Romeral 9.7 km · 8 places
What to see in Tembleque 10 km · 9 places
What to see in Dosbarrios 11 km · 7 places
What to see in Cabañas de Yepes 12 km · 5 places
What to see in Huerta de Valdecarábanos 14 km · 7 places
What to see in Lillo 16 km · 11 places
What to see in Villanueva de Bogas 17 km · 5 places
What to see in Yepes 18 km · 22 places

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

What to see and do in La Guardia

La Guardia
Village
Municipality of the comarca of Mesa de Ocaña, in the province of Toledo, set on top of a hill at 703 metres above sea level, in keeping with its place name, from the Gothic wardja, sentinel; it preserves the chapel of el Santo Niño, of the sixteenth century, carved into the limestone rock on which the village sits, the Casa de los Jaenes, a seventeenth-century mansion declared a Bien de Interés Cultural (Spain's highest level of heritage protection) and today an ethnological museum, and the grain store founded in 1672.
Hermitage of el Santo Niño
Monument
The hermitage of the Santo Niño, in La Guardia, takes its name from the Santo Niño de la Guardia, a false antisemitic accusation from the late 15th century recounting the supposed ritual murder of a child, who was never found nor reported missing, for which several Jews and converted Jews were burned in Ávila in 1491. During the 16th century a hagiographic legend developed around this episode, and its veneration continues to be celebrated in the town, with a feast day on 25 September. Excavated and carved into the limestone rock on which the village sits, the 16th-century hermitage is one of the most distinctive spaces in the Mesa de Ocaña.
Church of la Asunción de La Guardia
Monument
The parish church of Nuestra Señora de la Asunción in La Guardia, in Neoclassical style, was built between the 17th and 18th centuries (1620-1765) to designs by the architect Juan Bautista Monegro. The works, begun with the transept, were interrupted in 1640 when the village refused to pay tithes, and did not resume until 1760. With a Latin-cross floor plan, it preserves inside paintings by Angelo Nardi and silver pieces from Toledo workshops dating from the 16th to the 19th century, as well as the 18th-century Neoclassical main altarpiece, with a large canvas by Alejandro de la Cruz from 1766. The Chapel of the Chaplains, with a Greek-cross floor plan and also built by Monegro between 1628 and 1632, houses paintings by Nardi and Orrente and has its own crypt. The nave's eight original chapels were lost during the Civil War.
House of the Jaenes Family
Monument
A 17th-century manor house listed as a Bien de Interés Cultural (Spain's highest level of heritage protection) in 1991, now converted into the town's ethnological museum.
Public Granary of La Guardia
Monument
The Pósito of La Guardia is a 17th-century grain storage building, located on the town's Plaza Mayor, in the Toledo district of the Mesa de Ocaña. It was founded in 1672 by Gabriel Muñoz de Guzmán to house the grain collected in the town, and stands as a testimony to the agrarian organization of the Ancien Régime in the area.
Medieval Synagogue of La Guardia
Monument
The old synagogue of La Guardia, in the Mesa de Ocaña district, dates from the 15th and 16th centuries and is one of the few remaining traces of the presence of a Jewish community in the town before the expulsion. The building is preserved today, converted into the hermitage of Nuestro Padre Jesús.
Wardja, the Watchman
Curiosity
The place name comes from the Gothic wardja, meaning sentinel or lookout, a name born in the time of the Reconquest and fitting for a town set on top of a hill 703 metres above sea level.
La Guardia and Las Navas de Tolosa
Curiosity
The town of La Guardia (Toledo), built atop a hill and a key point on the road toward Andalusia, was handed over after the Reconquista by Alfonso VI to the knights of the Order of San Juan. It gained notoriety for its connection to the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa, fought on 16 July 1212 between an allied Christian army — with Castilian troops under Alfonso VIII, Aragonese troops under Peter II and Navarrese troops under Sancho VII — and the numerically superior army of the Almohad caliph Muhammad al-Nasir; described as a crusade, it drew knights from across Europe and is considered one of the most important battles of the Reconquista, although its immediate military consequences were limited. Later, Ferdinand III granted the town to the Church of Toledo.
Hempseed flatbreads
Food and drink
Flatbreads of bread dough flattened and strewn with hemp seed, the seed of the hemp that was grown in the comarca. They are baked in a wood-fired oven and eaten on their own or with wine; they are the most characteristic savoury sweet of La Guardia.