Logbook · 6 places

What to see and do in Batres

What to see and do in Batres (Comarca Sur, Madrid): 6 places across monuments, nature, activities and curiosities, with a photo and a Google Maps location.

1 Villages · 3 Monuments · 1 Nature · 1 Historical milestones

How far each place is from the centre of Batres

Castle of Batres 200 m

Towns near Batres

What to see in Serranillos del Valle 3.1 km · 3 places
What to see in Carranque 4.8 km · 7 places
What to see in Griñón 5.5 km · 6 places
What to see in El Álamo 6.1 km · 5 places
What to see in Arroyomolinos 6.6 km · 5 places
What to see in Ugena 6.9 km · 6 places
What to see in Cubas de la Sagra 7.3 km · 6 places
What to see in El Viso de San Juan 7.5 km · 5 places

Spain › Community of Madrid › Comarca Sur › Batres

What to see and do in Batres

Batres
Village
Batres is a village of fewer than 2,000 inhabitants in the south of the Community of Madrid, beside the Guadarrama River, whose 15th- and 16th-century Gothic and Plateresque castle-palace was the home of the poet Garcilaso de la Vega, son of Sancha de Guzmán, lady of Batres. Three quarters of its territory, around 1,625 hectares, are protected within the Regional Park of the Middle Guadarrama, of which Batres is the southernmost municipality; its riverside woods and banks coexist with scrubland, pastures and stands of pine and holm oak around the castle. The Monte de Batres, under the park's highest level of protection, is home to notable bird fauna, including the Spanish imperial eagle, the golden eagle, the cinereous vulture and the peregrine falcon.
Castle of Batres
Monument
The castle of Batres, or casa-fuerte, is a fortified palace of the 15th and 16th centuries standing on a rise at the boundary with Toledo, surrounded by a natural moat and a grove watered by streams that flow into the Guadarrama. It was the residence of the lords of Batres, among them the poet Garcilaso de la Vega, who inherited the title from his mother; it later passed to the counts of Oñate and the marquesses of Riscal. Built in fired brick on flint foundations, it is arranged around the keep, with an Isabelline Gothic gateway and the coat of arms of the Laso de la Vega y Guzmán family, and a Plateresque courtyard with a double gallery, Toledan columns and a Gothic well. The historic-artistic ensemble, protected since 1970, also includes the Fuente de Garcilaso; it was restored by the architect Luis Moreno de Cala between 1959 and 1970, after he acquired it in the 1970s.
Banks of the Guadarrama in Batres
Nature
Almost three quarters of the municipal district falls within the Regional Park of the middle course of the River Guadarrama and its surroundings, a corridor of riverside groves and cliffs over which the Spanish imperial eagle and the black vulture fly.
Historic-artistic ensemble of Batres
Monument
A decree of the Ministry of Education and Science of 22 July 1970 protected the castle and fortified house, the Garcilaso Spring and their surroundings, together with the parish church, the underground cellar, the bridge over the Sotillo stream and the dam.
Spring of Garcilaso
Monument
A spring collected in a trough next to the huerta del Mirador, within the historic-artistic ensemble of the casa-fuerte of Batres, which the Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia declared protected in 1970, after the restoration directed between 1959 and 1970 by Luis Moreno de Cala; the ensemble also includes the parish church, an underground wine cellar, the bridge over the stream, the wall, a storehouse and the gardener's house. Local tradition links the fountain to the years the poet Garcilaso de la Vega, lord of the place and son of Sancha de Guzmán, lady of Batres, spent there, in a Gothic Isabelline and Plateresque castle from the 15th and 16th centuries.
Fernán Pérez de Guzmán retires to Batres
Historical milestone
Having retired to his lordship of Batres around the mid-15th century, Fernán Pérez de Guzmán wrote there 'Generaciones y semblanzas', the first gallery of literary portraits in Castilian literature; his great-grandson, the poet Garcilaso de la Vega, later frequented the family manor house.