PEDRAZA DE LA SIERRA

E5, A1, 23 km west of exit 99 Santo Tomé

The name Pedraza makes you think of the Spanish word for stone, piedra, and the whole village does actually look like a huge pile of stones, albeit a structured one, as it sits perched on a natural stone plateau in this beautiful, deserted landscape in the middle of nowhere.

At one end of the village stands the castle, a little secluded, with its towers and pinnacles appearing to be tumbling down the precipice on top of which it was built. At the other end of the village the one town gate leads directly into a labyrinth of narrow alleyways. Here are ancient houses, built in untreated, natural golden stone, standing side by side with nobler houses for the gentry of the 17th and 18th centuries, all adorned with their personal coats-of-arms. In the centre of the village you will find Plaza Mayor, a beautiful square with rustic colonnades, on top of which sit deep balconies and a romanesque bell-tower. Around the corner rises the Romanesque church of San Juan, which was so thoroughly renovated in the 17th and 18th centuries, that today it is really only its tower that can be called Romanesque.

AN ALMOST IMPREGNABLE STRONGHOLD

The plateau on which Pedraza is built has long constituted a natural defense. People have been able to seek shelter here in times of unrest, and it is said that this place was enclosed by a wall as early as the 8th century, when the Caliph Abderramán I resided in the castle. Pedraza was one of many Spanish castles which were practically impossible to capture. It was as good as inaccessible from three sides and even from the fourth it was extremely difficult for the enemy to force his way in.

The castle we see today was built in the Gothic style but underwent a number of changes in the 16th century, when the well-known family Velasco resided here. The most recent and comprehensive, if not altogether tasteful, renovation carried out here can be attributed to Ignatio Zuluaga. This famous Basque painter purchased the dilapidated castle at the beginning of last century and turned it into a private home. For this castle good times have followed upon bad. The building in which Zuluaga lived a life of luxury was in an earlier, darker era a bleak, impenetrable prison, where, among others, the sons of the French King Francois I were held captive for four years. Zuluaga has also had an inn dedicated to him, Hosteria Pintor Zuluaga, housed in another building with an equally gruesome past, the House of the Inquisition.

MUCH DESIRED PEACE AND QUIET

Pedraza de la Sierra is only a tiny village of some 4-500 inhabitants, but there are nevertheless two pleasant little hotels and a number of restaurants here. This is where the citizens of Madrid come in search of tranquillity and where the silence around the Guadarrama mountains gives them a welcome break from the noisy capital.

Plaza Mayor sometimes serves as bullfighting arena

Arcades on Plaza Mayor