Logbook · 7 places

What to see and do in Getafe

What to see and do in Getafe (Área Metropolitana, Madrid): 7 places across monuments, nature, activities and curiosities, with a photo and a Google Maps location.

1 Villages · 3 Monuments · 2 Curiosities · 1 Historical milestones

How far each place is from the centre of Getafe

Towns near Getafe

What to see in Leganés 5.2 km · 8 places
What to see in Pinto 6.7 km · 6 places
What to see in Fuenlabrada 7.3 km · 5 places
What to see in Parla 8.5 km · 2 places
What to see in Humanes de Madrid 11 km · 4 places
What to see in Alcorcón 11 km · 4 places
What to see in Moraleja de Enmedio 12 km · 4 places
What to see in Valdemoro 13 km · 18 places

Spain › Community of Madrid › Área Metropolitana › Getafe

What to see and do in Getafe

Getafe
Village
Getafe is a city in the Community of Madrid, located south of the capital and within its metropolitan area, in the basin of the Manzanares River. It has around 193,000 inhabitants and its origin dates to around 1326, when the inhabitants of Alarnes and other nearby hamlets moved to a site beside the royal road from Madrid to Toledo. Until the 19th century it retained an agricultural character, but in the 20th it industrialized strongly in the aerospace, logistics and technology sectors. Its Santa María Magdalena Cathedral, seat of the Diocese of Getafe, was begun by Alonso de Covarrubias in 1549; the Cerro de los Ángeles, held to be the geographic center of the peninsula, is crowned by the monument to the Sacred Heart, and its air base, one of the oldest in Spain, has operated since 1911.
Cathedral of Santa María Magdalena
Monument
Built between 1549 and 1770 to designs by Alonso de Covarrubias and with the involvement of Juan Gómez de Mora, it mixes Renaissance, Mudéjar in the tower and Baroque; declared a monument in 1958, it has been a cathedral since 1991, when the diocese of Getafe was created.
Monument to the Sacred Heart of the Cerro de los Ángeles
Monument
Inaugurated by Alfonso XIII on 30 May 1919 with architecture by Carlos Maura and sculptures by Aniceto Marinas, it was pulled down by militiamen in 1936; the present complex was built afterwards beside the mutilated remains of the first.
Cerro de los Ángeles
Curiosity
The cerro de los Ángeles is a witness hill in the municipality of Getafe, with its base at 610 metres and its highest point at 666.235 metres, where there is a first-order geodetic vertex; from the summit there are views of Madrid, Getafe and the surrounding countryside. It has traditionally been considered the geographic centre of the Iberian Peninsula, although the National Geographic Institute notes that this location is difficult to determine and some modern studies place it further west, near Calalberche, or even in Getafe itself. During the Civil War it was renamed Cerro Rojo and was the scene of fighting. Today it is crowned by the Monument to the Sagrado Corazón, from 1919, the hermitage of Nuestra Señora de los Ángeles, patroness of Getafe, a Carmelite convent from 1925 and a seminary opened in 1994.
Little Hospital of San José
Monument
The Hospitalillo de San José is a former hospital for the poor built in Getafe in the early sixteenth century, whose origin lies in the will drawn up by Alonso de Mendoza in 1507, leaving much of his estate to help the needy of Getafe, Pinto and Griñón. It functioned as such until 1971; modified on successive occasions, it ceased to appear in the register of Madrid's hospitals, and in the 1980s the Getafe Town Council, together with the Fundación Hospital de San José, restored the building, then in a ruinous state, which today is a social services centre. It is a two-storey building, with rooms arranged around a courtyard with a cloister and Tuscan columns; notable features include its façade, with a curved pediment, the chapel, with a Baroque altarpiece, and the cloister itself.
First flight of Juan de la Cierva's autogyro
Curiosity
On 9 January 1923, at the Getafe aerodrome, Lieutenant Alejandro Gómez Spencer flew Juan de la Cierva's C.4 autogyro in a hop of some 183 metres: the first flight ever achieved by a rotary-wing aircraft.
The first flight of the autogyro
Historical milestone
Lieutenant Alejandro Gómez Spencer took off on 9 January 1923 from the Getafe aerodrome in Juan de la Cierva's C.4 and flew one hundred and eighty-three meters. It was the first rotary-wing aircraft to fly stably, the direct forerunner of the helicopter.