The best gravel rides around Fuentenovilla

It is a beautiful town, one of those that remain with its essence.

The Valmores watering hole was restored in 2022, recovering an essential piece in the ethnographic heritage of Pezuela de las Torres. The first references to the fountain appear in the Topographic Relations of 1578. In 1735, reforms and improvements were made to the original spring, making it essential in the daily life of the countryside. The construction has a functional design to water livestock at a crossroads of the Alcarreño moor with trees and benches to take a break.

Pezuela de las Torres acquired jurisdictional independence in 1554 for the payment of one and a half million maravedis, erecting a pillory in the Plaza del Coso that represented the power to administer justice and a place for the town's residents to see criminals who were being sentenced to a pillory. The pillory is seven metres high on a pedestal of four steps and is topped with the heads of four lions. Next to it is the Plaza de la Constitución, home to the Town Hall and the Church of the Assumption, with a Romanesque apse and the rest rebuilt between the 16th and 18th centuries. It has a curious stately doorway from 1748 and a 16th century porticoed gallery, known as El Portalillo, the former meeting centre of the council. Most of the town's streets are on a slope, facing the plain, some houses retain the traditional two-storey country architecture and white facades. On Cerro del Calvario there are remains of traditional wineries used to make wine.

The unique urban style of Nuevo Baztán maintains the original Baroque model from the beginning of the 18th century, designed by José de Churriguera by order of Juan de Goyeneche, who had permission from Charles II to build glass, paper and textile factories on Spanish territory. The Navarrese businessman was originally from Arizkun, in the Baztán Valley, but spent time in Madrid because he had other properties and professional relations with the Court. He chose the site of Madrid's Alcarria to found an industrial and rural centre in honour of his homeland and commissioned the Madrid architect to build a glass factory, a farming village of half a thousand inhabitants, a palace, a monumental church and gardens with centuries-old pines and elms. The town preserves cobbled streets, stone squares, rural buildings from the time of its foundation, between 1709 and 1713, and palace gardens, a beautiful heritage complex declared a Historic-Artistic Monument in 1941 and a Site of Cultural Interest in 2000.

Comfortable stretch of greenway, which I especially recommend in February, with the flowering of the almond trees

Famous for its palm trees, Morata de Tajuña is a must-see stop for all cyclists in the south of Madrid.

Nuevo Baztán is a Baroque luxury because the urban settlement included the most advanced manufacturing complex of its time, a precursor to the great task of modernization and future industrialization of Spain, undertaken by the first Bourbons and was also the precursor of the future royal factories. Bourbon. Juan de Goyeneche developed the Nuevo Baztán project, providing local and regional labor, Castilians, and artisans brought from different places, both national and European, to activate his factories. The old town preserves the style it had in the 18th century. The Church Square, in front of the Palace, with its gardens, is framed by the town hall and the old houses of the town. The Palace is being rehabilitated, and Nuevo Baztán hopes, as a silent witness of its splendor in the 18th century, that the competent organizations will definitively conclude the rehabilitation of this Baroque jewel, a symbol of union between Navarrese and Madrid. Source: https://turismo.ayto-nuevobaztan.es/nuevo-batzan/

The Valmores fountain, an Asset of Heritage Interest of the Community of Madrid, is a good example of the historical sources existing in the region, closely linked to livestock farming and the livestock routes that facilitated the movement of herds through the territory. It is attached to the base of a bank, a wide unproductive slope that links dry fields arranged at different levels, and preserves the original catchment system intact, maintaining an acceptable flow. Source: https://www.comunidad.madrid/cultura/patrimonio-cultural/restauracion-fuente-valmores-pezuela-torres