Hoyo de Manzanares

Hoyo de Manzanares is a Spanish village near Madrid at the feet of the Sierra de Guadarrama.

The village itself has little interest beside the tiny historical center with its plaza mayor (with arcades) and church, but the area around, as part of the Parque Regional de la Cuenca Alta del Manzanares, is of tremendous beauty. Scenes of a few Spaghetti Westerns, including the most famous ones, were filmed there. The road that brings you to Hoyo de Manzanares from Colmenar Viejo, calle del Beneficio, is very romantic. As you reach the village, you go along a big military complex, where the last executions of the Franquist regime have been carried out.

Visit

We visited the area on 27 January (2013) with Elena's parents and uncles, on a rather cloudy day. The camera we used on this occasion was a high-tech one but on the end of its life and that had been passed from Carlos Reboul (a professional photographer) to Inma.