Location
The Guadarrama river flows through this municipality, specifically through its hamlet of La Navata, which is located 35km to the northwest of the city of Madrid, in the sierra which has the same name as the aforementioned river. No less than two natural spaces protected by the autonomous government of Madrid have part of their lands in this municipal district: the regional park of the Cuenca Alta del Manzanares and the regional park of the middle course of the Guadarrama river and its surrounding area. The former includes the northeast vertex of Galapagar, and the latter, almost all the rest of its municipal district, which houses a population of over 27,000 inhabitants. Its city centre stands 890 metres above sea level.
What to See
The parish church of Nuestra Señora de la Asunción is a robust C16th construction and was declared a building of cultural interest in 1995. Another worthy place is the bridge from the same century which crosses the River Guadarrama and was projected by the great architect and engineer of the Spanish Renaissance, Juan de Herrera. Its construction was commissioned by King Felipe II to facilitate the countless times that he and his court moved to the monastery of San Lorenzo el Real, in the then nearby town of El Escorial.
The last accomplishments in terms of buildings we will cite here are the Town Council building, renovated last century but built in the second half of the C18th; the church of San Bartolomé and the C15th shrine of El Cerrillo; the bridges of El Retamar, of El Molino and the Viejo de La Navata; the C18th dam of El Gasco; the also C18th Herreño bridge; and the bridge of Alcanzorla over the Roman road which crosses the municipality from north to south, and which joined Complutum (the present-day Alcalá de Henares) to Segovia. Another Roman remain like the Roman road and the bridge of Alcanzorla is the milestone which was found on it and which is preserved today in the town hall.
Useful Facts
The bullfighting fair which forms part of the fiestas in honour of its patron saint the Santísimo Cristo de las Mercedes, which attract locals and strangers alike in mid- September, is a not-to-bemissed date on the calendar of aficionados. And the fact is that, although it is a town related to literature because it is the place where the Spanish writer and winner of the Nobel prize for literature, Jacinto Benavente, lived during the last years of his life and where a local monument serves to remember him, it is even more related to the bullfighting world not only because it was the original, not current, grazing place for the best herd of fighting bulls ever, that of Victorino Martín (born in Galapagar), the deservedly famous 'vitorinos', but also because it was the hometown of one of the most recent, greatest figures in the bullfighting world, the bullfighter José Tomás. We nearly forgot.The origin of the place name is obvious: a flock of 'galápagos' or turtles which lived in some of the lagoons in the town.
Nature
Last but not least, if this town has an emblematic spot, then it is the place known as the Canto del Peso; a game of natural statics in which some enormous stones hold each other up, apparently by magic, and finally, a music lover's recommendation, the Galapajazz summer festival.
