Colmenar Viejo is a town and municipality of about 48,614 inhabitants, located in the

Community of Madrid The Community of Madrid (; es, Comunidad de Madrid ) is one of the seventeen autonomous communities of Spain. It is located in the centre of the Iberian Peninsula, and of the Central Plateau (''Meseta Central''). Its capital and largest munic ...

, Spain, 30 kilometers north of

Madrid Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the Largest cities of the Europ ...

on the M-607

motorway A controlled-access highway is a type of highway that has been designed for high-speed vehicular traffic, with all traffic flow—ingress and egress—regulated. Common English terms are freeway, motorway and expressway. Other similar terms i ...

. It belongs to the comarca of Cuenca Alta del Manzanares.

Main sights

In the town, there are many archeological sites, most of them come from hispanic- visigothic times, with household areas and burials. ColmenarViejo Basilica Asuncion Nstra Sra View

ColmenarViejo Basilica Asuncion Nstra Sra View

The most important tourist attractions places in Colmenar Viejo are: * Basilica de Nuestra Señora de la Asunción * Ermita de Remedios, saint of the town *

Visigothic The Visigoths (; la, Visigothi, Wisigothi, Vesi, Visi, Wesi, Wisi) were an early Germanic people who, along with the Ostrogoths, constituted the two major political entities of the Goths within the Roman Empire in late antiquity, or what is kno ...

archaeological tombs

Physical environment

Colmenar Viejo's

municipality A municipality is usually a single administrative division having corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality'' may also mean the go ...

has a size of 182.6 square kilometres (70.5 square miles), the third largest in the

province of Madrid The Community of Madrid (; es, Comunidad de Madrid ) is one of the seventeen autonomous communities of Spain. It is located in the centre of the Iberian Peninsula, and of the Central Plateau (''Meseta Central''). Its capital and largest munici ...

, after

and

Aranjuez Aranjuez () is a city and municipality of Spain, part of the Community of Madrid. Located in the southern end of the region, the main urban nucleus lies on the left bank of Tagus, a bit upstream the discharge of the Jarama. , the municipality h ...

. Traditional

granite Granite () is a coarse-grained ( phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies under ...

mining Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the Earth, usually from an ore body, lode, vein, seam, reef, or placer deposit. The exploitation of these deposits for raw material is based on the economic ...

has been changing Colmenar Viejo's landscape. As a result of livestock farming, mainly cow and horse cattle,

grassland A grassland is an area where the vegetation is dominated by grasses ( Poaceae). However, sedge ( Cyperaceae) and rush ( Juncaceae) can also be found along with variable proportions of legumes, like clover, and other herbs. Grasslands occur na ...

has been taking a main role. A large part of land under Colmenar Viejo's

jurisdiction Jurisdiction (from Latin 'law' + 'declaration') is the legal term for the legal authority granted to a legal entity to enact justice. In federations like the United States, areas of jurisdiction apply to local, state, and federal levels. J ...

is inside of the

Parque regional de la Cuenca Alta del Manzanares Parque is the Galician, Portuguese and Spanish word for "park", and may refer to: * Parque (TransMilenio), a metro station in Bogotá, Colombia * Parque (Lisbon Metro), in Portugal * Parque (Santurce), a subbarrio in San Juan, Puerto Rico * Jim ...

(Manzanares Upper Basin Regional Park), causing that land to be under a high protection environmental level. The Navalvillar Grassland is protected by the municipality and, albeit it does not belong to the Park, it is quite rich in flora and fauna.

Climate

Colmenar Viejo has a hot-summer

Mediterranean climate A Mediterranean climate (also called a dry summer temperate climate ''Cs'') is a temperate climate sub-type, generally characterized by warm, dry summers and mild, fairly wet winters; these weather conditions are typically experienced in the ...

(

Köppen Köppen is a German surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Bernd Köppen (born 1951), German pianist and composer * Carl Köppen (1833-1907), German military advisor in Meiji era Japan * Edlef Köppen (1893–1939), German author and ...

''Csa'') with cold winters.

Demography

Cinematography

Estudios Tablada in Madrid used the Dehesa de Navalvillar as a filming location for films such as '' El Cid'', ''

Spartacus Spartacus ( el, Σπάρτακος '; la, Spartacus; c. 103–71 BC) was a Thracian gladiator who, along with Crixus, Gannicus, Castus, and Oenomaus, was one of the escaped slave leaders in the Third Servile War, a major slave uprisin ...

'', ''

Alexander the Great Alexander III of Macedon ( grc, Ἀλέξανδρος, Alexandros; 20/21 July 356 BC – 10/11 June 323 BC), commonly known as Alexander the Great, was a king of the ancient Greek kingdom of Macedon. He succeeded his father Philip II to ...

'', '' For A Few Dollars More'', ''La última aventura'', ''

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly ''The Good, the Bad and the Ugly'' ( it, Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo, literally "The good, the ugly, the bad") is a 1966 Italian epic spaghetti Western film directed by Sergio Leone and starring Clint Eastwood as "the Good", Lee Van Clee ...

'' and ''

Conan the Barbarian Conan the Barbarian (also known as Conan the Cimmerian) is a fictional sword and sorcery hero who originated in pulp magazines and has since been adapted to books, comics, films (including '' Conan the Barbarian'' and '' Conan the Destroyer'') ...

''. The television series Locked Up (''Vis a vis'') also commissioned a studio in Colmenar Viejo for most of its filming. Lately, the Netflix series Money Heist and Sky Rojo took several scenes filmed there.

Transport

Bus

Urban lines

* L-1: Las Adelfillas - Train Station * L-2: Remedios Avenue - Train Station

Interurban lines

* 610:

Torrelodones Torrelodones is a municipality in the northwest of the Autonomous Community of Madrid, Spain. It is situated 29 kilometers northwest from the city of Madrid. Because of its location between the Sierra de Guadarrama and the metropolitan area of the ...

Hoyo de Manzanares Hoyo de Manzanares is a municipality of the Community of Madrid, Spain, and is located on the northwestern side of the community of Madrid and to the south of the Sierra de Guadarrama. It has a stable population of roughly 7,457 residents (INE 2 ...

- Colmenar Viejo * SE 720: Colmenar Viejo -

Manzanares el Real Manzanares el Real is a 8,936 inhabitant town (2020 statistics fro in the northern area of the autonomous Community of Madrid. It is located at the foot of The Pedriza, a part of the Sierra de Guadarrama, and next to the ''embalse de Santillana' ...

(by

Soto del Real Soto del Real, whose former name was ''Chozas de la Sierra'', is a town and municipality in the northern area of the autonomous Community of Madrid which had 8,294 inhabitants in 2009. 43 kilometers away from Madrid, the capital city, it is loca ...

) * 720: Colmenar Viejo -

Collado Villalba Collado Villalba () is a municipality of the Community of Madrid, in central Spain. It is located 40.3 kilometres north-west of the city of Madrid, at an altitude of 917 meters above sea level. It has a population of 63,679 (2019), with a popula ...

* 721: Colmenar Viejo (by Libertad Avenue) -

(

Plaza de Castilla The Plaza de Castilla ( en, "Castile Square") is a roundabout in the north of Madrid, Spain. Location It is located in the north of the city and is bisected by Paseo de la Castellana, one of the main thoroughfares of the capital, almost at its ...

) * 722: Colmenar Viejo (by Ronda Oeste) - Madrid (Plaza de Castilla) * 723: Colmenar Viejo -

Tres Cantos Tres Cantos is a municipality of Spain located in Community of Madrid. Originally belonging to Colmenar Viejo, it seceded from the latter municipality in 1991, becoming the youngest municipality in the region. The urbanised area was conceived as ...

(not available on Sundays) * 724:

El Boalo El Boalo is a Spanish village of around 6000 inhabitants, north west of Madrid, in the Community of Madrid. Bus * 672: Cerceda - Moralzarzal - Madrid (Moncloa) * 724: El Boalo - Manzanares el Real Manzanares el Real is a 8,936 inhabitant t ...

- Manzanares el Real - Madrid (Plaza de Castilla) * 725: La Cabrera - Valdemanco - Bustarviejo -

Miraflores de la Sierra Miraflores de la Sierra is a town and municipality in the northern area of the autonomous Community of Madrid, in central Spain, of c. 6,000 inhabitants, located 49 kilometers away from Madrid. History Miraflores de la Sierra, formerly known as P ...

- Madrid (Plaza de Castilla) * 726: Navalafuente - Guadalix de la Sierra - Madrid (Plaza de Castilla) * 727: San Agustín de Guadalix - Colmenar Viejo * Night bus line 702: Colmenar Viejo - Madrid (Plaza de Castilla)

Train

Colmenar Viejo has a train station in the outskirts of the town, which is the terminal of line C-4 of Cercanías Madrid. From the station, you can go to Tres Cantos in about 8 minutes, to Cantoblanco University in about 15 and to Madrid (Chamartin) in about 23. Since 2011, they used to pass trains to Burgos in Colmenar, but due to a detachment in the Somosierra tunnel, the trains to Burgos no longer pass through here.

Festivities

* Fiesta de ''la Vaquilla'', February 2 * Fiesta de ''la Maya'', May 2 * Festivities in honour of the Virgen of Remedios, last weekend of August * Day of Colmenar Viejo, commemorating the villages endorsement by Ferdinand II of Aragon, November 22

Twin towns

Colleferro Colleferro (IPA: /kɔllefɛrro/) is a small town with 20 698 inhabitants of the Metropolitan City of Rome in the Lazio region of central Italy. It is a residential zone with many different industries and sports structures. It borders the City of F ...

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...

Suresnes Suresnes () is a commune in the western suburbs of Paris, Île-de-France. Located in Hauts-de-Seine, from the centre of Paris, it had a population of 49,145 as of 2016. The nearest communes are Nanterre, Puteaux, Rueil-Malmaison, Saint-Cloud a ...

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...

References

External links

Official website

''Colmenar Viejo'' bird eye

{{authority control Municipalities in the Community of Madrid