Link profile: Colmenar Viejo

Category: Start / Spain and its Regions / Madrid / Colmenar Viejo
In the shadow of the Sierra de Guadarama, Colmenar Viejo is a historic town, though not all that much of its history is very visible nowadays, and its proximity to and accessibility from the city of Madrid give it something of a schizophrenic air, more dormitory town than the country settlement it has been in the past. But for all its size and urbanity, this is the country, typically Spanish dehesa, rolling countryside dotted with holm oaks, known as cattle country and one of the places in Spain where it is easiest to see bulls (including fighting bulls) in the semi-wild state in which they are raised. Much of the municipal area falls within the Cuenca Alta del Manzanares nature reserve, though you are more likely to visit it on your way to or from the sierra. Unless you make the effort to attend its fiestas, which enjoy a certain fame.

The link goes to the Spanish-only municipal website, where I found a charming story about the origin of the town's name. This looks straightforward - "colmenar" is apiary (collection of beehives), and "viejo" is old, so "Old Apiary," right? The story, though, is that the apiary belonged to an old man who was hospitable enough to provide lodgings to travellers along the road between Alcalá de Henares and Segovia which passed nearby, and some of these travellers ended up staying, so forming the new hamlet of "Colmenar del Viejo," the Old Man's Apiary. Not that it makes a great deal of difference, for there has been a Colmenar Viejo since the early 1200s.
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