Logbook · 6 places

What to see and do in Meco

What to see and do in Meco (Cuenca del Medio Jarama, Madrid): 6 places across monuments, nature, activities and curiosities, with a photo and a Google Maps location.

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

How far each place is from the centre of Meco

Church of Nuestra Señora de la Asunción de Meco 250 m

Towns near Meco

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

What to see and do in Meco

Meco
Village
Meco is a town of about 15,900 inhabitants in the Henares corridor, in the Campiña of the same name, on the border with the sub-comarca of the Alcarria de Alcalá. Its territory, with remains of a Celtiberian settlement and a Roman necropolis, formed part of Carpetania, subdued by the general Gracchus around 182 BC. In the wetlands of El Listón and El Aristón, next to the cereal steppes of the municipality, birds such as the great bustard, the little bustard and Bonelli's eagle breed and migrate. Meco is famous for the bull that Pope Innocent VIII granted its inhabitants to eat meat during Lent, and it preserves the church of la Asunción, begun around 1540 and declared a Monumento histórico-artístico in 1982.
Church of Nuestra Señora de la Asunción de Meco
Monument
The church of Nuestra Señora de la Asunción in Meco, declared a historic-artistic monument in 1982, predates 1487 and was rebuilt from the mid-16th century onward, when the Cantabrian master builders Juan de Ribero and his brother Nicolás worked on it. In 1568 it received the relics of the Saints Justo and Pastor from Huesca. With a basilical plan of three naves of equal height, the central one being the widest, it combines Ionic and Corinthian orders with Gothic elements in its elevations, under a ribbed vault with tiercerons showing the influence of Diego de Siloé. Its large dome, added in 1715, is closed on the outside by a lantern with a baroque-tinged spire designed by Teodoro Ardemans, chief master of works to Philip V. The church can be seen from kilometres away.
The Bull of Meco
Curiosity
A papal privilege that exempted the residents of Meco and of several neighbouring villages from keeping the Friday fast and other fasting days of the year. According to one version, it was granted in the late 15th century by Pope Innocent VIII, pontiff from 1484 to 1492, as a reward for services rendered to Íñigo López de Mendoza y Quiñones, second Count of Tendilla and lord of Meco; according to another, more often cited by tradition, it was because the village, situated in the centre of the peninsula, could not receive fresh fish quickly enough to observe the Lenten abstinence from meat, and the bull was supposedly issued by Pope Clement XIV on 12 September 1772. From this arose the saying that something cannot be fixed even with the bull of Meco.
Hermitage of el Cristo del Socorro
Monument
Late 16th-century Mudejar chapel on the outskirts of the town which, together with the 17th-century Baroque chapel of the Virgen de la Cabeza, completes the religious heritage of a town whose parish church was declared a historic-artistic site in 1982.
Wetlands of El Listón and El Aristón
Nature
Seasonal lagoons that form in the rainy season between the R-2 industrial estate and the El Encín golf course, prized by birdwatchers as a spot for observing resident and migratory water birds in the Henares corridor.
Meco passes to the Mendoza family
Historical milestone
Juan II granted the lordship of the villa to Íñigo López de Mendoza, future marquis of Santillana, separating it from the land of Alcalá administered by the archbishop of Toledo. His son would receive it again in 1443 for military services.