Logbook · 6 places

What to see and do in Puente del Congosto

What to see and do in Puente del Congosto (Guijuelo, Salamanca): 6 places across monuments, nature, activities and curiosities, with a photo and a Google Maps location.

1 Villages · 2 Monuments · 1 Activities · 2 Historical milestones

Towns near Puente del Congosto

Spain › Castile and León › Salamanca › Guijuelo › Puente del Congosto

What to see and do in Puente del Congosto

Puente del Congosto
Village
Puente del Congosto is a municipality of about 236 inhabitants in the comarca of Guijuelo, in the province of Salamanca, which owes its name to the bridge with the narrow arch over the río Tormes, on the old route from Ávila to Ciudad Rodrigo, of which today only a side wall survives. Next to it stands the castle of the Dávila family, traditionally linked to the death of Prince John in 1497. The area has been inhabited since the Upper Palaeolithic, more than twelve thousand years ago, especially around El Berrueco, a granite promontory that served as a refuge for successive populations until Romanisation and which was declared a Monumento Histórico-Artístico (a former Spanish heritage-protection designation) in 1931 for being one of the most important archaeological sites in the provinces of Salamanca and Ávila.
The castle of the Dávila family
Monument
Begun in 1393 by Gil González Dávila on the escarpment of the Tormes, it has an irregular hexagonal plan, a great parade ground and a four-storey tower beneath which a magnificent cistern opens. It was declared a historic ensemble in October 2019.
The fortified bridge over the Tormes
Monument
The bridge that gives the town its name, on the route that linked Ávila with Ciudad Rodrigo, was called del Arco Angosto after the narrow opening of which only one side wall remains. Its bridge toll was charged until the House of Alba sold it in the nineteenth century.
Pedro de la Gasca, raised in the fortress
Historical milestone
Pedro de la Gasca, born in Navarregadilla and raised in this castle, was sent in 1546 by Charles V to Lima with extraordinary powers and defused Gonzalo Pizarro's rebellion without an army; a plaque on the wall commemorates the pacifier of Peru.
The Royal Extranjero in the castle
Historical milestone
During the Peninsular War (1808-1814), the Castillo de los Dávila, in Puente del Congosto, suffered its greatest damage when it housed a French detachment known as the Royal Étranger, part of the division of General Joseph Léopold Hugo, father of the writer Victor Hugo.
The pilgrimage of the ermita de la Orden
Activity
In the surroundings of the hermitage of La Orden, severely damaged by Napoleonic troops during the Peninsular War, the town's traditional pilgrimage festival is held every year, the event that brings together the residents and those who emigrated.