They all seem invented, but they could not be more real: in the Community of Madrid (and its surroundings) it is possible to find a wide catalog of unusual places. Places that, when described, seem to move between reality and fiction.
A village of goblins, a church where a rubber duck is worshipped or a subway vault: the limit, once again, seems to be only in the imagination.
Goblin Village
In El Tiemblo, a village in Ávila, they have been telling stories of goblins and fantastic creatures for generations. Jose Luján, a craftsman by hobby and born in El Tiemblo, grew up with them and three years ago decided to give them shape. Thus was born El Poblado de los Duendes, the first of the unusual places on the list that can be reached in just over 1 hour by car from Madrid -and also by intercity bus-.
It is a hand-carved miniature village that has the sole purpose of being a place where children can spend hours playing and can even bring their own elves -or any other kind of creature- to stay and live there. Thanks to this, the village is constantly growing and what started out as just a few houses now needs to be divided into neighborhoods.
📍El Tiemblo (Ávila)
Route of the Faces
There are several hiking trails to choose from in Madrid -in this article we recommended a few-, but making a trip to the municipality of Buendía (less than 150 kilometers from the capital) there is certainly an unusual one: the Ruta de las Caras (Route of the Faces).
On this route, not only will you be able to see plant species -such as rosemary, sage, thyme and lavender- and animals -migratory birds such as cranes-, but also 18 sandstone sculptures carved by Eulogio Reguillo and Jorge Juan Maldonado.
📍Buendía (Cuenca enclave near Guadalajara)
Civic
Cívica, in the Alcarria region of Guadalajara, is a unique rock-hewn village located on the CM-2011 road between Brihuega and Masegoso de Tajuña. Although it is currently closed to the public because it is privately owned and in poor condition, its beauty can be admired from the outside.
Built between the 1950s and 1970s by the priest Aurelio Pérez, this structure with arches, grottoes, stairs and waterfalls is reminiscent of both a Tibetan village and the caves of Cappadocia. In addition, in the surroundings you can visit a waterfall and, in nearby Yela, a Romanesque church rebuilt in 1950.
IMPORTANT NOTE: Civica is private property and is not in a good state of conservation so access is prohibited.
📍Between Brihuega and Masegoso de Tajuña (Guadalajara)
Enchanted Forest
The Enchanted Forest is not really a forest.
It is a sculpture garden of 30,000 square meters that combines a botanical garden with more than 500 species of plants from all over the world and a natural museum with more than 300 tree sculptures. This space, ideal for children, features sculptures representing everything from dolphins and dragons to princesses and the Beatles, as well as mazes, cactus exhibits, bonsai, aromatic plants and the Barbellido waterfall. The tour lasts approximately two hours and offers a magical experience in contact with nature.
You have all the practical information of the space in this link.
📍San Martín de Valdeiglesias (Madrid)
Justo Cathedral
Justo Gallego, a farmer and bricklayer, dedicated more than half a century of his life to building a cathedral in Mejorada del Campo without blueprints and using recycled materials, such as tire wheels and plastic drums.
He began the work with his own hands, inspired by a mixture of castle and Romanesque cathedral, eventually raising a structure 35 meters high and a central floor of 50 meters. Although he did not live to see his work completed, his legacy lives on in the monumental cathedral he erected.
And yes, it is the cathedral of the famous Aquarius ad.
📍Calle de Antonio Gaudí, 10 (Mejorada del Campo)
El Paticano: Leo Bassi’s “patholic” church.
In the center of Madrid, in the heart of the Lavapiés neighborhood, we can find a completely atheist church. A full-fledged oxymoron that worships without accountability to nothing more and nothing less than a rubber duck. The Paticano, as this genius is called, is a tiny chapel full of plastic ducklings that does not even take itself seriously and invites you not to take anything too seriously either.
The patholic church was created on December 28, 2012, the day of the Holy Innocents, by the comedian Leo Bassi, who plays the papa-to every Sunday in a hilarious mass. Since then, it has received numerous curious and funny people who want to photograph its ornate decoration and know what its peculiar ten commandments are. Spoiler: the first of them is “Thou shalt love good humor above all things”.
📍Travesía de la Primavera, 3 (Lavapiés)
Box of Letters
It used to guard the golden ingots that belonged to the Banco Español del Río de la Plata. Today, for the past seventeen years, it has kept the mementos left by the families of important filmmakers, writers, actors and musicians at the Instituto Cervantes. It is La Caja de las Letras, a vault with 1,767 locked chests, distributed on two floors full of objects of great personal value to their distinguished owners: from the pipe used by Antonio Buero Vallejo to the first collection of poems by Miguel Hernández.
Fortunately, the Cervantes Institute organizes visits in which it is possible to tour the large safe and see the outside of the famous armored chests. You can also explore this unusual place when the Institute hosts exhibitions.
📍Alcalá, 49
Church under the M-30
The Puerta del Hierro area hides a subway walkway with a church that has been under the M-30 since 1978. Santo Domingo de la Calzada was built to take advantage of the space left by one of the half-barrel vaults under the road.
Already during its first years of life in the city, the temple suffered significant deterioration due to its roof, which was made of asphalt. This material caused water filtrations every time it rained, which filled the church with leaks. Today it has a resistant roof that has partially solved the problem and, curiously, masses are still celebrated inside despite its particular location.
📍Fuentelarreina, 28 (Madrid)
British cemetery
Why does Carabanchel have aBritish-style garden with 600 graves? The story goes back to the 19th century, when the Spanish clergy made it difficult for non-Catholics to be buried with dignity. In the 1850s, the British authorities obtained permission to build the Englishmen’s Cemetery, where now rest people like Charles Clifford, pioneer of Spanish photography; the minister Arthur Ferdinand Yencken; Margarita Kearney Taylor, founder of Embassy, and many other important names.
📍Comandante Fontanes, 7