Logbook · 6 places

What to see and do in Navas del Rey

What to see and do in Navas del Rey (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 · 1 Historical milestones · 1 Food and drink

How far each place is from the centre of Navas del Rey

Reservoir of Picadas 5.4 km
Picadas gorge 5.4 km

Towns near Navas del Rey

Spain › Community of Madrid › Sierra Oeste › Navas del Rey

What to see and do in Navas del Rey

Navas del Rey
Village
Navas del Rey is a town of about 3,400 inhabitants in the Community of Madrid, situated in the transition zone between the sierras of Guadarrama and Gredos, within the basin of the Alberche river, alongside other municipalities of the Mancomunidad de Pinares. A former royal hunting ground — the Libro de la Montería of Alfonso XI already mentions the area, and nearby stood the La Asperilla hunting lodge, in the Dehesa Real —, it separated ecclesiastically from San Martín de Valdeiglesias in 1774 under the name Dehesa de las Navas. In the mid-19th century it had 292 inhabitants, according to the dictionary of Pascual Madoz; Ferdinand VII granted it the title of town on 22 April 1819. Among the pine woods of the Alberche valley it houses a museum devoted to the Guardia Civil, held to be the only one in Spain.
Reservoir of Picadas
Nature
Concrete gravity dam built in 1952 in a narrow gorge of the Alberche: 59 metres high and 145 long for a reservoir of barely 15 hm³ and 92 hectares, used for hydroelectric production, irrigation and water supply.
Church of San Eugenio Obispo
Monument
A church ordered built in 1782 by Cardinal Lorenzana, when the town ceased to depend in ecclesiastical terms on the monastery of Valdeiglesias and on San Martín; its patron, Saint Eugene of Toledo, is celebrated on 15 November.
Picadas gorge
Nature
A narrowing of the Alberche valley covered with stone pine and Scots pine mixed with holm oaks, junipers and wild olives; in the pine woods of the northern half of the district, specimens more than two hundred years old survive.
Navas del Rey obtains the title of town
Historical milestone
Fernando VII granted the title of town to a community that until then depended on San Martín de Valdeiglesias; ecclesiastical separation had been achieved in 1774. The definitive demarcation between the two districts was not signed until 1837.
The vineyards of the San Martín subzone
Food and drink
The municipality belongs to the San Martín de Valdeiglesias subzone of the Vinos de Madrid Denomination of Origin, the westernmost and most granitic of the four, made up of only nine districts between the Alberche and the Cofio.