As we previously reported here at Madrid Secreto, work recently began to extend the Cercanías commuter rail service to Soto del Real. Although there is still a long way to go before the extension of Line C-4b to that Madrid town is inaugurated, the town where the line currently ends is also worth a visit; we’re referring to Colmenar Viejo, at the foot of the Sierra de Guadarrama.
This town in Madrid is home to the layered traces of millennia of history. The oldest date back to the Paleolithic and Bronze Ages; at the Casa Museo de la Villa, visitors can admire prehistoric pottery and stone tools discovered within its municipal boundaries (which is the third-largest in the province, behind those of Madrid and Aranjuez).
But the most numerous and striking archaeological sites are those dating from the Visigothic period. Among these, the necropolises of Remedios and Fuente del Moro stand out—cemeteries with tombs carved into the rock that are over a thousand years old.
And without going back quite that far in time, a highlight of Colmenar Viejo’s architectural heritage is the Basilica of the Assumption of Our Lady, a Gothic church built between the 15th and 16th centuries that houses a large Plateresque altarpiece. All of this is set within a natural environment of great ecological value, as a large part of the municipality lies within the Cuenca Alta del Manzanares Regional Park.
The pasture where Kubrick filmed
At first glance, it would be hard to imagine that the very slopes where cattle graze in the Navalvilllar pasture were the setting for the famous final battle between the slaves and the Roman army in Stanley Kubrick’s film *Spartacus*, but the truth is that this protected natural area was, in fact, the setting for dozens of film shoots in the 1960s and 1970s.
This pastureland north of Colmenar Viejo served as a stand-in for the American Wild West in classic spaghetti westerns, such as *The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly* and *For a Few Dollars More*, directed by Sergio Leone, or *The Falcon and the Prey*, by Sergio Sollima.
Hardly any remains are left of most of the sets built back then, but the natural setting chosen by dozens of filmmakers as the backdrop for their films remains impressive. From the dehesa—which covers more than 1,000 hectares—there are spectacular views of Cerro de San Pedro, the Santillana Reservoir, La Pedriza, and the entire Sierra de Guadarrama.
Furthermore, before great directors like Orson Welles and Wim Wenders set foot in Colmenar Viejo, the Visigoths had already done so. In the pasturelands lie the archaeological sites of Navalvillar and Navalahija, where remnants of dwellings and workshops from the 7th and 8th centuries still remain and can be visited.
How to get to Colmenar Viejo by public transportation
There are several options for visiting Colmenar Viejo by public transportation. We’ve already mentioned one: the C-4b commuter rail line, which departs from Parla and passes through Getafe, Villaverde, Atocha, Sol, Nuevos Ministerios, Chamartín, and Cantoblanco, ending its route (for now) in Colmenar.
In addition, several intercity bus lines depart from the Plaza de Castilla transit hub, taking passengers to Colmenar Viejo or passing through the town, such as the 721 and 722. The complete list can be found in this section of the Madrid Transportation Consortium’s website.