Logbook · 5 places

What to see and do in Algete

What to see and do in Algete (Cuenca del Medio Jarama, 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 Historical milestones

Towns near Algete

Spain › Community of Madrid › Cuenca del Medio Jarama › Algete

What to see and do in Algete

Algete
Village
Algete is a town of about 21,000 inhabitants situated on the flood plain of the River Jarama, in the Community of Madrid, about twenty kilometres northeast of Sanchinarro and Las Tablas de Madrid. Its name comes from the Arabic al-sat, 'the bank, the shore'. The municipality sits among hills, with the plain of the Jarama to the west and an area of hills to the east known as the Llano del Campo; around it stretch fields of crops, eucalyptus woods and scrubland. The historic centre is spread across neighbourhoods such as Palomares, El Cigarral and Los Pazos, alongside residential developments. It preserves the church of la Asunción, rebuilt in the 16th century, and a territory declared a Special Protection Area for Birds where great bustards and kestrels fly; Philip V turned the town into a duchy in 1728.
Church of Nuestra Señora de la Asunción de Algete
Monument
The church of Nuestra Señora de la Asunción replaced a 12th-century Romanesque temple and retains alterations from the late 14th or early 15th century, with a four-tiered brick tower topped by a copper spire in Madrid style. It has a three-nave plan with Tuscan and Ionic columns, covered by a simple wooden roof, while the transept, main chapel and sacristy are closed with sail vaults decorated with medallions of the Fathers of the Church and the evangelists. Its main altarpiece, carved and inspired by the one at El Escorial, was commissioned in 1612 from Alonso de Vallejo and Juan Muñoz, who carved it until 1615, and the paintings were completed by Vicente Carducho and Eugenio Cajés in 1619. The damage of 1936 destroyed almost all the sculpture, of which only five paintings were preserved.
Linear Park of the Historic Fountains
Nature
Walkway linking three restored fountains: the Fuente del Burro, beside the old Alcalá road; the Fuente de las Virtudes, already known in the 16th century for the curative properties attributed to it; and the Fuente del Cigarral, fed by catchment galleries of medieval origin.
The Charity of San Roque of Algete
Activity
The confraternity of San Roque, with more than three centuries of history, holds mass, a procession and the auction of the litter and the standard for the following year every 16 August, and in the afternoon hands out bread, cheese and lemonade to the sound of the dulzainas.
The sale of Algete to the Marquis of Cañete
Historical milestone
Gregory XIII authorized Philip II in 1579 to detach Algete from the archbishopric of Toledo, and the king sold it for twenty thousand ducats to García Hurtado de Mendoza, Marquis of Cañete, who years later would become viceroy of Peru.