Logbook · 6 places

What to see and do in Cenicientos

What to see and do in Cenicientos (Sierra Oeste, Madrid): 6 places across monuments, nature, activities and curiosities, with a photo and a Google Maps location.

1 Villages · 1 Monuments · 2 Nature · 2 Activities

When to go to Cenicientos: festival calendar

October: Festival of la Vendimia (un fin de semana de octubre)

How far each place is from the centre of Cenicientos

Archaeological site of la Piedra Escrita 3.1 km
The Roman sanctuary of Piedra Escrita 3.1 km

Towns near Cenicientos

Spain › Community of Madrid › Sierra Oeste › Cenicientos

What to see and do in Cenicientos

Cenicientos
Village
Cenicientos is the westernmost municipality of the Community of Madrid, in the Sierra Oeste comarca, with about 2,150 inhabitants, situated at the foot of the Peña de Cenicientos, 1,252 metres high, and bordering Toledo and Ávila. It was first called San Esteban de la Encina; according to tradition, it took its present name during the Reconquista, when the village's representative replied to a request for a hundred lances from King Alfonso VIII that “con cien y cientos puede contar, Su Majestad”, a phrase that gave rise to “Cien y cientos” and, in time, to Cenicientos, a form already used in the 14th-century Libro de la Montería. Its residents are known as coruchos. It preserves the Piedra Escrita, a Roman granite monolith with carved figures, and the Gothic church of San Esteban Protomártir, from the 15th and 16th centuries.
Archaeological site of la Piedra Escrita
Nature
Located in the municipality of Cenicientos, southwest of Madrid, it is a granite monolith about 7 metres high and 9 metres in circumference. Its front face bears a semicircular niche with a relief of three figures in Roman togas and an inscription that for centuries was read as medieval, with the text «a las tres Marías»; in 1995 the epigraphist Alicia M. Canto recognised beneath the retouching a Roman votive dedication to the goddess Diana, so the monument is interpreted as an ancient altar or rock-cut shrine, and it has also been suggested that it marked the Roman border between Hispania Citerior and Lusitania. The Comunidad de Madrid declared it a Bien de Interés Cultural (Spain's highest level of heritage protection), as a zone of archaeological interest, in August 2021.
Peña de Cenicientos
Nature
A summit of 1,252 metres that is the highest point in the municipal district and one of the southern foothills of the Sierra de Gredos; the municipality forms part of the Natura 2000 Network as both a Special Protection Area for Birds and a Special Area of Conservation.
Festival of la Vendimia de Cenicientos
Activity
A wine harvest celebration established in 1982 that every October gathers the village around the garnacha and albillo real of the San Martín subzone; it shares the calendar with the festivities of the Virgen del Roble, from 13 to 17 August.
The Roman sanctuary of Piedra Escrita
Monument
The Piedra Escrita is a natural granite monolith about 7 metres tall, in the municipal district of Cenicientos, in the southwest of the Community of Madrid. On its western face a niche was carved in Roman times, with a relief of three figures in long robes and two animal silhouettes at their feet, together with an inscription; in 1995 the epigraphist Alicia M. Canto recognised beneath the medieval retouching the original text, a votive dedication to the goddess Diana. In the Middle Ages, the scene already blurred, it was interpreted as the three Marys of the New Testament and the inscription was reworked to read “A las tres Marías” (To the three Marys). The monument was originally a Roman rock-cut oratory. In August 2021 the Community of Madrid declared it a Bien de Interés Cultural (Spain's highest level of heritage protection).
Festival of la Vendimia
Activity
Held for the first time in 1982, the festival brings the village together around the grape harvest with treading, an offering of the must and tastings. The vineyard figures among the district's traditional products since the nineteenth century.