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Dehesa of Navalvillar

Colmenar Viejo, Cuenca Alta del Manzanares, Madrid

1 Villages · 11 Monuments · 8 Nature · 2 Activities · 1 Curiosities · 2 Historical milestones · 3 Food and drink

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Dehesa of Navalvillar

Nature · Colmenar Viejo, Cuenca Alta del Manzanares, Madrid

The dehesa of Navalvillar, on the foothills of the sierra de Guadarrama and sheltered to the north by the cerro de San Pedro, has recorded references since the 11th century, when King Alfonso X is said to have hunted bears in its grounds. It preserves remains of Visigothic dwellings of the 6th and 7th centuries, which survived after the Arab conquest of the 8th century, and old metal mines, among them one of silver and copper now flooded. A communal dehesa of 1,072 hectares of ash trees and holm oaks protected by municipal ordinance, it has been municipal property since at least the 16th century, which allowed its archaeological remains to be preserved. Between the 1950s and the 1980s it served as a set for more than two hundred film shoots, among them Spartacus, El Cid and numerous spaghetti westerns.

Photo: Nachosan (CC BY-SA 3.0)

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