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What to see and do in Colmenar de Oreja

What to see and do in Colmenar de Oreja (Las Vegas, Madrid): 8 places across monuments, nature, activities and curiosities, with a photo and a Google Maps location.

1 Villages · 3 Monuments · 1 Nature · 1 Curiosities · 1 Historical milestones · 1 Food and drink

How far each place is from the centre of Colmenar de Oreja

Ulpiano Checa Museum 100 m
Church of Santa María la Mayor de Colmenar 200 m

Towns near Colmenar de Oreja

Spain › Community of Madrid › Las Vegas › Colmenar de Oreja

What to see and do in Colmenar de Oreja

Colmenar de Oreja
Village
Colmenar de Oreja is a Madrid town in the comarca of Las Vegas, with about 9,100 inhabitants, whose urban centre is declared a Bien de Interés Cultural (Spain's highest level of heritage protection), located at 753 metres of altitude between the Tagus and Tajuña rivers. The first settlements, from the Iron Age, were Carpetani, and on its territory in 220 BC took place the battle in which Hannibal Barca defeated 100,000 Carpetani, Olcades and Vaccaei after crossing the Tagus by night at what has since been called the Vado de Aníbal, whence comes a Carthaginian sword given to Philip II. It preserves a Plaza Mayor built between 1676 and 1794, a centuries-old reputation for clay jars and limestone quarries, the medieval-origin church of Santa María la Mayor and a museum dedicated to the painter Ulpiano Checa, born here.
Main Square of Colmenar de Oreja
Monument
A Castilian arcaded square begun in 1676 and completed in 1794, with limestone arcades quarried in the municipal district itself, above which rise the town hall and the public granary; a stone tunnel runs beneath its south side beside the Zacatín garden.
Church of Santa María la Mayor de Colmenar
Monument
Catholic temple begun in the mid-13th century by the Order of Santiago, in limestone quarried from the quarries of the municipal district of Colmenar de Oreja itself; it was founded in 1171 by Pedro Fernández de Fuentecalada, first master of the Order, to which it belonged until 1540, and enlarged in the 16th century to reach its present size, with portals and a tower commissioned to Pedro Artadi following models by Juan de Herrera. It has a stone exterior with the air of a fortress and a Gothic-style interior, with three portals of Ionic, Tuscan and Doric orders, and preserves murals by Ulpiano Checa. Restored between 2004 and 2007, it received the Europa Nostra Award for European Heritage in 2009 -the year in which a German-made organ was also installed- and in 2020 it was declared Bien de Interés Cultural (Spain's highest level of heritage protection).
Ulpiano Checa Museum
Monument
Municipal picture gallery that holds the most complete collection of the painter Ulpiano Checa, born in the town on 3 April 1860 and died in Dax (France) on 5 January 1916. Trained at the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando and a fellow at the Spanish Academy of Fine Arts in Rome, he was a founding member of the Círculo de Bellas Artes de Madrid and worked as an illustrator for La Ilustración Española y Americana. Famous for his large historical and orientalist canvases -he exhibited at the Salon des Champs-Élysées in Paris-, the museum also preserves his drawings, sculptures and posters.
Reedbeds and riverside groves of the Tagus
Nature
Special Protection Area for Birds ES0000119, shared between Colmenar de Oreja and Aranjuez, which safeguards the reed beds, riverside groves and wetlands of the Tagus valley; among its species the marsh harrier and the little bittern stand out.
Earthenware jars of Colmenar de Oreja
Curiosity
The town had as many as 35 jar kilns in the early 20th century, firing vessels more than four metres tall that fifteen men would manoeuvre inside with a net; the last local potter, Eugenio Crespo, worked until 1980.
Colmenar passes to the Order of Santiago
Historical milestone
Alfonso VIII granted in 1171 to the friars of Santiago jurisdiction over much of this municipality on the bank of the Tagus. Under the military order grew the town that centuries later would raise its great arcaded main square.
Wine jars of Colmenar de Oreja
Food and drink
The town was for centuries the great jar-making centre of Castile: its potters modelled bulging clay vessels of up to five hundred arrobas in which the wine of the comarca fermented and was kept before the arrival of steel.