Logbook · 5 places

What to see and do in Rivas-Vaciamadrid

What to see and do in Rivas-Vaciamadrid (Área Metropolitana, Madrid): 5 places across monuments, nature, activities and curiosities, with a photo and a Google Maps location.

1 Villages · 2 Nature · 1 Activities · 1 Historical milestones

How far each place is from the centre of Rivas-Vaciamadrid

Lagoon of el Campillo 2.5 km
Southeast Regional Park 6.4 km

Towns near Rivas-Vaciamadrid

Spain › Community of Madrid › Área Metropolitana › Rivas-Vaciamadrid

What to see and do in Rivas-Vaciamadrid

Rivas-Vaciamadrid
Village
Rivas-Vaciamadrid, 16 km from Madrid, has grown from 653 residents in 1981 to around 103,000. The town of Rivas was founded around 1100 by the Segovian quiñonero captain Guillermo de Ribas; in 1845 it incorporated Vaciamadrid, a name derived from the Arabic Faḥṣ Maŷrit, “field of Madrid,” after the crops that in Andalusi times supplied the capital. Its two villages were razed on the Jarama front during the Civil War and were rebuilt as a single settlement in 1954, already under the current name. Three quarters of its territory now lie within the Southeast Regional Park, where the Jarama and Manzanares rivers meet amid gypsum bluffs and gravel-pit lagoons with a stork colony. The Covibar and Pablo Iglesias neighborhoods, built by workers' cooperatives, earned Rivas a reputation as a “red belt.”
Lagoon of el Campillo
Nature
A body of water of some 35 hectares and about four kilometres in diameter, located in the Sureste regional park, in Rivas-Vaciamadrid (Madrid), formed from gravel pits worked in the Jarama river valley during the 1960s and 1970s as excavation went below the water table; after the activity ceased and the surroundings were restored, it is today the park's second-largest lagoon by area, after that of El Porcal. Beside it ran the route of the old Tajuña railway, opened in 1886 and closed in 1997, along which the Tren de Arganda now runs, a tourist service with historic rolling stock between La Poveda station and a siding beside the lagoon, where there is also a nature interpretation centre.
Southeast Regional Park
Nature
Declared in 1994 around the lower courses of the Manzanares and the Jarama, this regional park covers 31,552 hectares spread across sixteen municipalities of the Community of Madrid, among them Rivas-Vaciamadrid, Arganda del Rey, San Martín de la Vega and Getafe, and it protects gypsum cliffs and bluffs, cereal plains, riverside woodlands and banks, and numerous wetlands and lagoons formed from old gravel pits. One of its most emblematic sites is the Cerros de la Marañosa, reaching a maximum height of 698 metres; the area also preserves archaeological and palaeontological sites.
Trenches of the Battle of the Jarama
Activity
On the Cerro del Telégrafo and the bluffs of the Jarama, forts, parapets, rifle pits and observation posts survive from the battle fought between 6 and 27 February 1937, one of the bloodiest episodes of the war, today accessible on foot. The offensive, launched by the insurgent army to cut Madrid's communications, unfolded chiefly in Rivas-Vaciamadrid, where the caves used by the Republican side can still be seen on the hillside. The Republican troops, scattered at first, regrouped on 15 February under General José Miaja's command into four divisions that managed to halt the advance towards Arganda del Rey; among the combatants were the XI, XII, XIV and XV International Brigades, who fought between the Jarama and Morata de Tajuña.
The Battle of Jarama
Historical milestone
The rebels crossed the river in February 1937 over the Pindoque and San Martín bridges in order to cut the Valencia road. The front came to a halt after three weeks of fighting and tens of thousands of casualties, with Madrid's supply route kept safe. Most of the battle was fought in Rivas-Vaciamadrid, where the caves dug by the Republican side can still be seen on the hillside; the troops, initially scattered, regrouped on 15 February under the command of General José Miaja into four divisions that halted the advance toward Arganda del Rey. The XI, XII, XIV and XV International Brigades also fought, between the Jarama and Morata de Tajuña; Republican resistance delayed both the siege of Madrid and the war's final outcome.