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

Community of Madrid The Community of Madrid (; ) is one of the seventeen autonomous communities and 50 provinces of Spain, provinces of Spain. It is located at the heart of the Iberian Peninsula and Meseta Central, Central Plateau (); its capital and largest munici ...

, Spain, 30 kilometers north of

Madrid Madrid ( ; ) is the capital and List of largest cities in Spain, most populous municipality of Spain. It has almost 3.5 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 7 million. It i ...

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 ...

. 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 (; ) were a Germanic people united under the rule of a king and living within the Roman Empire during late antiquity. The Visigoths first appeared in the Balkans, as a Roman-allied barbarian military group united under the comman ...

archaeological tombs

Physical environment

Colmenar Viejo's

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

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

province of Madrid The Community of Madrid (; ) is one of the seventeen autonomous communities and 50 provinces of Spain, provinces of Spain. It is located at the heart of the Iberian Peninsula and Meseta Central, Central Plateau (); 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 the Tagus, a bit upstream of the discharge of the Jarama. , the munici ...

. Traditional

granite Granite ( ) is a coarse-grained (phanerite, phaneritic) intrusive rock, 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 coo ...

mining Mining is the Resource extraction, extraction of valuable geological materials and minerals from the surface of the Earth. Mining is required to obtain most materials that cannot be grown through agriculture, agricultural processes, or feasib ...

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 dominance (ecology), dominated by grasses (Poaceae). However, sedge (Cyperaceae) and rush (Juncaceae) can also be found along with variable proportions of legumes such as clover, and other Herbaceo ...

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

jurisdiction Jurisdiction (from Latin 'law' and 'speech' or 'declaration') is the legal term for the legal authority granted to a legal entity to enact justice. In federations like the United States, the concept of jurisdiction applies at multiple level ...

is inside of the Parque regional de la Cuenca Alta del Manzanares (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 climate, described by Köppen and Trewartha as ''Cs'', is a temperate climate type that occurs in the lower mid-latitudes (normally 30 to 44 north and south latitude). Such climates typic ...

(

Köppen Köppen is a German surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Bernd Köppen (1951–2014), German pianist and composer * Carl Köppen (1833-1907), German military advisor in Meiji era Japan * Edlef Köppen (1893–1939), German author ...

''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 Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar ( – 10 July 1099) was a Castilian knight and ruler in medieval Spain. Fighting both with Christian and Muslim armies during his lifetime, he earned the Arabic honorific ("the Lord" or "the Master"), which would evolve i ...

'', ''

Spartacus Spartacus (; ) was a Thracians, Thracian gladiator (Thraex) who was one of the Slavery in ancient Rome, escaped slave leaders in the Third Servile War, a major Slave rebellion, slave uprising against the Roman Republic. Historical accounts o ...

'', ''

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

'', ''

For A Few Dollars More ''For a Few Dollars More'' () is a 1965 Spaghetti Western film directed by Sergio Leone. It stars Clint Eastwood and Lee Van Cleef as bounty hunters and Gian Maria Volonté as the primary villain. Klaus Kinski plays a supporting role as a se ...

'', ''La última aventura'', ''

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly ''The Good, the Bad and the Ugly'' (, 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 Cleef as "the Bad", and Eli Wallach a ...

'' and ''

Conan the Barbarian Conan the Barbarian (also known as Conan the Cimmerian) is a fictional sword and sorcery hero created by American author Robert E. Howard (1906–1936) and who debuted in 1932 and went on to appear in a series of fantasy stories published in ''We ...

''. 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 - Hoyo de Manzanares - Colmenar Viejo * SE 720: Colmenar Viejo - Manzanares el Real (by Soto del Real) * 720: Colmenar Viejo - Collado Villalba * 721: Colmenar Viejo (by Libertad Avenue) -

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

Tres Cantos Tres Cantos () is a Municipalities of Spain, 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 urban ...

(not available on Sundays) * 724: El Boalo - Manzanares el Real - Madrid (Plaza de Castilla) * 725: La Cabrera - Valdemanco - Bustarviejo - Miraflores de la Sierra - 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 village's endorsement by

Ferdinand II of Aragon Ferdinand II, also known as Ferdinand I, Ferdinand III, and Ferdinand V (10 March 1452 – 23 January 1516), called Ferdinand the Catholic, was King of Aragon from 1479 until his death in 1516. As the husband and co-ruler of Queen Isabella I of ...

, November 22

Bullfighting

The Colmenar Viejo

bullring A bullring is an arena where bullfighting is performed. Bullrings are often associated with the Iberian Peninsula, but they can also be found through Iberian America and in a few Spanish and Portuguese ex-colonies in Africa. Bullrings are ...

was inaugurated in 1891, and has since come to be one of Spain's foremost, second only to Las Ventas in downtown

. It is sometimes called ''La Corredera''. After a renovation, it was reinaugurated in 1990. It gained notoriety in 1985 when a bull named Burlero gored the popular

bullfighter A bullfighter or matador () is a performer in the activity of bullfighting. ''Torero'' () or ''toureiro'' (), both from Latin ''taurarius'', are the Spanish and Portuguese words for bullfighter, and describe all the performers in the activ ...

José Cubero Sánchez ("el Yiyo") to death.

Notable people

* Eva Nogales, Spanish-American

biophysicist Biophysics is an interdisciplinary science that applies approaches and methods traditionally used in physics to study biological phenomena. Biophysics covers all scales of biological organization, from molecular to organismic and populations ...

Twin towns

* Colleferro,

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

Suresnes Suresnes () is a commune in the western inner suburbs of Paris, France. Located in Hauts-de-Seine, from the centre of Paris, it had a population of 49,482 as of 2020. Suresnes borders the Bois de Boulogne in the 16th arrondissement of Paris, ...

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

References

External links

Official website

''Colmenar Viejo'' bird eye

{{authority control Municipalities in the Community of Madrid