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What to see and do in Brunete

What to see and do in Brunete (Cuenca del Guadarrama, Madrid): 3 places across monuments, nature, activities and curiosities, with a photo and a Google Maps location.

1 Villages · 1 Curiosities · 1 Historical milestones

Towns near Brunete

Spain › Community of Madrid › Cuenca del Guadarrama › Brunete

What to see and do in Brunete

Brunete
Village
Brunete is a town in the Community of Madrid, on the plain between the Perales and Guadarrama rivers, 28 kilometres west of the capital, founded in the Middle Ages by the city of Segovia and settled by Segovians, on whom it depended until 1480, when Isabella the Catholic ceded the territory to the Cabrera-Bobadilla couple, a decision its residents, turned into pecheros, disputed unsuccessfully before the courts. During the Guerra de las Comunidades they rose up against Charles V. It gives its name to the Battle of Brunete of July 1937, which razed it completely, and it was later rebuilt by Regiones Devastadas; in its honour the present-day División Mecanizada Brunete núm. 1 of the Spanish army also took its name. It now has about 11,300 inhabitants.
Rebuilt historic centre of Brunete
Curiosity
Between 6 and 25 July 1937 the Battle of Brunete razed the village in the largest concentration of tanks of the entire civil war; the built-up area seen today was rebuilt in the 1940s by Regiones Devastadas.
The Battle of Brunete
Historical milestone
Offensive by the Republic's Popular Army from 6 to 25 July 1937 to relieve Francoist pressure on Madrid and ease the situation on the Northern front. It mobilised more than one hundred thousand combatants and devastated the urban centre of Brunete. After an initial advance, the offensive petered out within a few days; Franco transferred reinforcements from the North and, after a week of harsh fighting, recovered almost all the lost ground, with neither side achieving a clear victory and an extremely high number of casualties on both, especially among the International Brigades. The line stabilised almost where it had begun, after one of the bloodiest battles of the war and the one with the heaviest use of tanks, which later gave its name to the División Acorazada Brunete (Brunete Armoured Division).