Logbook · 6 places

What to see and do in Matabuena

What to see and do in Matabuena (Comunidad de Villa y Tierra de Pedraza, Segovia): 6 places across monuments, nature, activities and curiosities, with a photo and a Google Maps location.

1 Villages · 1 Monuments · 1 Nature · 1 Activities · 1 Curiosities · 1 Food and drink

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Spain › Castile and León › Segovia › Comunidad de Villa y Tierra de Pedraza › Matabuena

What to see and do in Matabuena

Matabuena
Village
Matabuena is a municipality of the Community of Town and Land of Pedraza, in the province of Segovia, 33 km from the capital, with 204 inhabitants, set on the western slope of the Montes Carpetanos, whose streams feed the Cega river; it also takes in the hamlets of Cañicosa and Matamala. Resettled during the Reconquista, it appears documented in 1340 as Mata Buena, a name that would allude to a wood of good-quality firewood, as opposed to that of neighbouring Matamala. It preserves the three-naved Romanesque church of San Cristóbal, and in the central square stands the rulo, a column where convicts were put on display. On 1 May it makes a pilgrimage up to the Cruz de las Reliquias, and in 2003 the Fuente Buena cave was discovered in its municipal area, with Neolithic and Palaeolithic remains.
Romanesque church of San Cristóbal
Monument
A Romanesque church of three naves with a baptismal font of great size; on the outskirts, beside the cemetery, stands the neoclassical hermitage of the Santo Cristo de la Columna, built in the eighteenth century.
Cave of la Fuente Buena
Nature
Discovered in 2003, this cavity in the municipal district of Matabuena has yielded Neolithic and Palaeolithic remains that push back by several millennia the human presence on these slopes of the Montes Carpetanos.
Pilgrimage of la Cruz de las Reliquias
Activity
On 1 May the locals climb up to the cross set at 1,957 metres of altitude, known as the Cruz de las Reliquias; the rest of the calendar is marked by Santiago Apóstol on 25 July and the Virgen del Carmen in August.
Wild boar caldereta (stew)
Food and drink
Local cooking has in wild boar caldereta its most characteristic dish, a direct legacy of a hunting tradition tied to the woods and scrub that gave the village its name, documented from 1340.
The stick dance (paloteo) of Matabuena
Curiosity
The village keeps a paloteo group that preserves the stick dances proper to the Segovian sierra, danced at the patronal festivities to the sound of the dulzaina and handed down from generation to generation.