Logbook · 9 places

What to see and do in Miraflores de la Sierra

What to see and do in Miraflores de la Sierra (Cuenca Alta del Manzanares, Madrid): 9 places across monuments, nature, activities and curiosities, with a photo and a Google Maps location.

1 Villages · 2 Monuments · 1 Nature · 2 Curiosities · 2 Historical milestones · 1 Food and drink

How far each place is from the centre of Miraflores de la Sierra

Church of Nuestra Señora de la Asunción 400 m
Morcuera mountain pass 5.7 km

Towns near Miraflores de la Sierra

Spain › Community of Madrid › Cuenca Alta del Manzanares › Miraflores de la Sierra

What to see and do in Miraflores de la Sierra

Miraflores de la Sierra
Village
Miraflores de la Sierra is a mountain locality of about 7,350 inhabitants situated 49 km from Madrid, on a south-facing slope of the Sistema Central, from where the roads to the mountain passes of La Morcuera and Canencia set off. Founded in the mid- or late 13th century by settlers from Segovia under the name of Porquerizas, it was integrated into the Real de Manzanares, lands placed under royal protection around 1268 by Alfonso X, from which Guadalix de la Sierra, Colmenar Viejo and Manzanares el Real also emerged; in 1363 they passed to the lordship of the dukes of El Infantado, and Charles I raised the hamlet to a villa in 1523. Tradition attributes to Elisabeth of Bourbon the change of its name to the present Miraflores de la Sierra. It preserves the 15th-century church of la Asunción and the Fuente Nueva, from 1791.
Church of Nuestra Señora de la Asunción
Monument
It was raised over an earlier church built between 1419 and 1481, of which only the tower with rounded corners survives; the present building is the result of a neoclassical remodelling in the 18th century and it preserves a font dated 1492.
Fuente Nueva
Monument
A baroque fountain of granite ashlar erected in 1791 in the centre of Miraflores; its central spout pours into two large basins, one of which served as a washing place and the other as a trough for the livestock heading up to the mountain pastures.
Vicente Aleixandre Poetry Space
Curiosity
Opened on 12 December 2010 in the Villa Miraflores Art Centre, it brings together first editions of the 1977 Nobel laureate, holdings on the Generation of '27 and photographs of the poet, who spent his summers here from 1925 in search of mountain air.
Morcuera mountain pass
Nature
The puerto de la Morcuera is a mountain pass at 1,776 metres in the sierra de la Morcuera, within the sierra de Guadarrama, through which the M-611 road covers the 21.66 kilometres that separate Miraflores de la Sierra from Rascafría; it is one of the toughest cycling passes in the Comunidad de Madrid. The climb from Miraflores, at 1,200 metres, gains about 600 metres of elevation over some 10 kilometres with an average gradient of 4 to 6%, and the descent towards Rascafría, at 1,150 metres, covers 13 kilometres with gradients of between 4.5 and 7%. From the top, the Madrid plain can be seen to the south and, in the other directions, peaks over 2,000 metres such as the Cabezas de Hierro and La Najarra, amid scrubland, pine woods and Pyrenean oak groves.
Plaza del Álamo
Curiosity
In June 1962 Vicente Aleixandre dedicated the poem "El Álamo" to the old tree that presided over this square, brought down by Dutch elm disease in the winter of 1989-1990; the space was remodelled in 2006 as a monument to old age.
The pasture agreement with Madrid
Historical milestone
After decades of lawsuits with the villa of Madrid over the use of its pastures, the council paid three thousand ducats to keep control of its own lands. The agreement consolidated the municipality as the livestock-raising head of the area.
From Porquerizas to Miraflores
Historical milestone
The last parish entry with the name Porquerizas is of 26 December 1627 and the next one, of January 1628, already says Miraflores. Tradition attributes the change to Queen Isabel de Borbón, wife of Felipe IV.
Potatoes with cod for Saint Blaise's day
Food and drink
On Saint Blaise's day it is the custom in the village to eat a stew of potatoes with salt cod, an abstinence dish typical of the mountain winter that makes use of the salted fish which reached the sierra along the old roads.