Logbook · 5 places

What to see and do in Los Molinos

What to see and do in Los Molinos (Cuenca del Guadarrama, Madrid): 5 places across monuments, nature, activities and curiosities, with a photo and a Google Maps location.

1 Villages · 1 Monuments · 1 Nature · 1 Activities · 1 Curiosities

How far each place is from the centre of Los Molinos

Church of la Purísima Concepción de Los Molinos 500 m
La Peñota 4.7 km

Towns near Los Molinos

What to see in Cercedilla 3.1 km · 13 places
What to see in Guadarrama 4.4 km · 7 places
What to see in Collado Mediano 4.7 km · 4 places
What to see in Navacerrada 5.4 km · 6 places
What to see in Alpedrete 6.9 km · 5 places
What to see in Becerril de la Sierra 6.9 km · 2 places
What to see in Moralzarzal 9.7 km · 2 places
What to see in Collado Villalba 10 km · 4 places

Spain › Community of Madrid › Cuenca del Guadarrama › Los Molinos

What to see and do in Los Molinos

Los Molinos
Village
Los Molinos is a village of about 4,800 inhabitants at 1,045 metres of altitude, in the Sierra de Guadarrama, 52 kilometres from Madrid. It owes its name to the flour mills built in the 16th century beside the River Guadarrama to supply flour for the works at El Escorial; already in 1546 there is record of a licence for a cube mill on the river. Linked until then to the town of Guadarrama, in 1666 Mariana of Austria, regent during the minority of Charles II, granted it the title of its own villa. During the 17th and 18th centuries it was a quarry of stone, wood and ice for the court in Madrid, and in 1888 the railway arrived, which, together with the sunbathing prescribed by doctors, turned it into a destination for rest and summer holidays for Madrilenians, a custom that continues to this day.
La Peñota
Nature
La Peñota is a mountain of the sierra de Guadarrama, in the Sistema Central, situated on the boundary between the provinces of Madrid and Segovia. A granite mass 1,945 metres high that overlooks the village of Los Molinos, within whose municipality its southern face lies, and marks the boundary with El Espinar, which occupies the northern slope; the eastern slope belongs to Cercedilla. Its ridge is formed by three summits, the highest named Pico Carpentier in memory of the naturalist who studied these mountains, and it is one of the best viewpoints in the sierra, with views over the Madrid and Segovia plains. The southern slope alternates alpine meadows and low scrub, while the northern one is covered in Scots pine forest; the whole lies within the Guadarrama National Park.
Flour mills of the Guadarrama River
Curiosity
The village owes its name to the river's water-powered mills: a licence of 1546 authorised Álvaro de Mena to build a penstock mill, and at least three mills supplied flour to the works on the monastery of El Escorial.
Church of la Purísima Concepción de Los Molinos
Monument
A church of 1580 of austere Herrerian workmanship in mountain granite, accompanied by the chapel of San José, of 1713, and that of El Carmen, from the 1940s; it presides over a municipality whose name comes from the flour mills on the River Guadarrama.
Festival of San Sebastián y la Vaquilla
Activity
Declared a Festival of Regional Tourist Interest, it is held from 19 to 21 January around a brotherhood documented in 16th-century texts; a brother wearing horns and a tail, escorted by young men with cowbells, charges at the crowd during the night release.