Logbook · 7 places

What to see and do in Guadarrama

What to see and do in Guadarrama (Cuenca del Guadarrama, Madrid): 7 places across monuments, nature, activities and curiosities, with a photo and a Google Maps location.

1 Villages · 2 Monuments · 2 Nature · 1 Curiosities · 1 Historical milestones

How far each place is from the centre of Guadarrama

Towns near Guadarrama

Spain › Community of Madrid › Cuenca del Guadarrama › Guadarrama

What to see and do in Guadarrama

Guadarrama
Village
Guadarrama is a town in the Community of Madrid, situated at 980 metres of altitude, at the foot of the mountain pass that bears its name, on the piedmont of the Sierra de Guadarrama. Founded by people from Segovia in 1268, it received the villazgo (town charter) from Ferdinand the Catholic in 1504 and was an obligatory passage point for those crossing the Alto del León towards the Meseta Norte. Its highest point, Cabeza Líjar, reaches 1,823 metres among reforested pine woods that have displaced the old Pyrenean oak woodlands; in the highest areas grows the piornal scrubland, with broom and trailing juniper, and next to a pine wood lies the La Jarosa reservoir. It also preserves dehesas of ash and holm oak. It has about 17,500 inhabitants.
Peñas del Arcipreste de Hita
Nature
A granite outcrop at around 1,520 metres in the sierra de Guadarrama, in the municipality of the same name, in the west of the Community of Madrid. It was declared a Monumento Natural de Interés Nacional (a former Spanish heritage-protection designation) in September 1930, in the closing days of the Restoration, at the request of the Real Academia Española (Royal Spanish Academy), which sought to commemorate the six hundredth anniversary of the Libro de buen amor by Juan Ruiz, the Archpriest of Hita, whose name the site bears. The declaration was formalised by a royal order published in the Gaceta de Madrid on 12 October of that same year.
Spring of Piedra de Guadarrama
Monument
Built in 1785, in the reign of Charles III, with irregular granite ashlars, it served as a watering place and water point on the Camino Real de Castilla, the route linking Madrid with the northwest of the Peninsula via the Guadarrama pass.
Old church of San Miguel Arcángel of Guadarrama
Monument
Built between the 15th and 16th centuries, it was pushed aside when in the 18th century a new church was raised with the remains of the Royal Granary of the Town and Court, left in ruins by the French invasion; its tower now gives its name to the La Torre cultural centre.
Reservoir of la Jarosa
Nature
The smallest of the reservoirs in the sierra de Guadarrama, with 7.2 cubic hectometres and 55 hectares of water surface, located in the valley of La Jarosa, in the municipality of Guadarrama. Besides the reservoir, the name La Jarosa also refers to the meadows on its banks, which total 93 hectares, several recreation areas and the extensive reforested pine woods amid which it lies, where the hermitages of Nuestra Señora de la Jarosa and del Altar Mayor stand. Included in the Catálogo de Embalses y Zonas Húmedas de la Comunidad de Madrid and in the Guadarrama National Park, its lower area forms part of the park's socio-economic interest zone, while the upper part, next to the puerto de Guadarrama, lies within the Protection Zone.
Alto del León
Curiosity
The pass owes its name to a monument with a lion placed halfway along the road in the 18th century; taken by the rebel troops on 22 July 1936, it was renamed Alto de los Leones in 1939 and did not get its original name back until April 2000.
The battles of Alto del León
Historical milestone
A republican column took the pass in the early hours of 22 July 1936, but the rebels recovered it on the 25th. It was the war's first clash in open country and fixed the Sierra front until the end of the conflict.