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What to see and do in Villanueva de la Cañada

What to see and do in Villanueva de la Cañada (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 Villanueva de la Cañada

Spain › Community of Madrid › Cuenca del Guadarrama › Villanueva de la Cañada

What to see and do in Villanueva de la Cañada

Villanueva de la Cañada
Village
Villanueva de la Cañada is a municipality of the Community of Madrid, west of the capital, in the basin of the middle course of the Guadarrama, with about 24,000 inhabitants and 34.92 square kilometres that include the settlements of Guadamonte, La Raya del Palancar and Villafranca del Castillo. Its origins predate the 15th century, when it was called La Despernada or Espernada -a name recorded in Philip II's Relaciones Topográficas of 1578-; in the 16th century it was renamed in the effort to mark out the drove roads used by transhumance flocks going up and down from the mountains. On a hill stands the castle of Aulencia, or of Villafranca, its main monument, already mentioned in the 14th century, with a keep and eight cylindrical towers. Today it has two universities, Alfonso X El Sabio and Camilo José Cela.
The Regiones Devastadas reconstruction of Villanueva de la Cañada
Curiosity
The village was destroyed in the Battle of Brunete of July 1937, when the church of Santiago served as an observation post for the 49th Brigade; the Directorate General of Devastated Regions rebuilt it entirely after the war.
The capture of Villanueva de la Cañada
Historical milestone
The British battalion of the XV International Brigade took the village on the second day of the Brunete offensive, in July 1937, after house-to-house fighting in over forty degrees. The delay in subduing it slowed the republican advance southwards.