Rivas-Vaciamadrid

Where the Runway Ends, the Lagoon Begins

The Metro surfaces at Rivas Futura and suddenly Madrid’s skyline is gone. In its place: a plateau of cereal fields, red-tailed kites wheeling overhead, and the faint smell of wet reeds drifting from the old gravel pits. Twenty-five minutes earlier you were wedged into a carriage on Line 9; now you’re 590 m above sea level on the edge of a 7 km bird-watching circuit. No transfers, no airport-style security, and the fare is still €2.50. That is the first surprise. The second is the quiet—relative, anyway—because 100,000 people live here, yet the Regional Park of the Southeast feels like a buffer zone they forgot to concrete over.

From Cooperative Fields to Commuter Belt

Rivas was a scatter of farm hamlets until the 1950s; photographs in the town archive show wheat threshing in the dry bed of the Jarama. Franco-era land reforms and, later, cheap municipal land lured cooperatives from Extremadura and Andalucía. What grew was not a chocolate-box pueblo but a purpose-built commuter town: wide boulevards named after planets, flats priced for young families, and a high street that ends in a duck pond. The architecture is functional rather than pretty—think brick and balconied rather than stone and timbered—yet the planners left 42 % of the district as green space, an unusually high quota for Madrid’s periphery. The result feels oddly Scandinavian: playgrounds every 300 m, cycle lanes painted the same green as the Danish flag, and signs reminding you that the stork nesting on the telegraph pole has right of way.

A Walk That Starts at a Car-Park and Ends in Prehistory

The Laguna del Campillo circuit is sign-posted from the A-3 but ignore the first car-park you see; it fills by 10 a.m. with madrilenyo families unloading cool-boxes and portable barbecues. Continue 500 m to the second lay-by—still free—and start the loop clockwise. The gravel path is flat enough for buggies, but bring water: the only shade is a single poplar grove and the breeze across the plateau can be deceptively drying. Within ten minutes you pass a hide overlooking open water; cormorants stand wings-out like broken umbrellas while coots fuss between the reeds. If the basin looks too geometric, that’s because it is: the lagoon is a 1980s restoration of an exhausted quarry. Still, the birds don’t seem to mind—SEO/BirdLife lists 180 species—and on spring weekends volunteers set up telescopes and will happily switch to English if you ask.

Halfway round, a spur trail climbs a low escarpment. From the top you can trace the Jarama’s ox-bows southward and, on clear days, pick out the radar dome at Barajas. Down below, the exposed clay is full of Miocene oyster fossils; pick one up and you’re holding a five-million-year-old beach. The circuit finishes past a second hide that faces west: evening light turns the water copper, and if you linger quietly a marsh harrier usually quarters the reeds. The whole walk takes ninety minutes at British strolling speed, two if you stop for every binocular sighting.

Two Wheels, No Lycra Required

Rivas wants to be the Madrid town you cycle to, not from. The Anillo Verde is 14 km of segregated lane that never touches the A-3; instead it threads parks, allotments, and the old River Tajuña railway track. The surface is tarmac, not single-track grit, so road bikes are fine. Hire is the snag: the municipal scheme is aimed at residents with a Spanish ID card. Work-around: bring a Brompton on the Metro (folded size is allowed all day) or rent from Bike and Roll at Atocha before you leave. Either way, set off early; by midday the wind can gust at 30 km/h across the plateau, and there is no café between the science museum and the lagoon—pack the picnic you bought in Carrefour under the H2O centre.

If you prefer horsepower to pedal power, the heritage train still runs on weekends. The 2.5-mile Arganda–Rivas line was built in 1895 to bring sugar-beet to the mills; today a bright green diesel pulls open-sided carriages past kitchen gardens and the last operational level crossing in the region. Tickets are €4 return, cash only, and the timetable changes with the liturgical calendar—check Twitter @TrenTajuna the night before.

What to Eat When You’re Not in the Capital

Spanish villages starve vegetarians; commuter towns drown them in pizza. Rivas splits the difference. For something properly local, walk ten minutes from the Metro to Calle de la Virgen. Casa José started as a bar for market gardeners; the daily menu still reflects whatever the greenhouse cooperatives need to shift—grilled padrón peppers in August, artichoke scramble in April. Three courses and a carafe run €14; they’ll swap jamon for asparagus if you ask. Craft-beer devotees head to Cervezzia on Avenida de los Pueblos: five house brews on tap, tasting flights served on slate, and staff who can answer “What’s the IBU?” in perfect Essex-accented English. Sunday roast it is not, but the bitter rivals anything from Bermondsey. If all else fails, the H2O food court has a 100 Montaditos where everything—yes, even the chorizo—costs €1.50 on Wednesdays. Order by number, pay by card, sit on the terrace and watch Spanish families argue over which sandwich filling most resembles British fish-fingers.

The Catch (There Always Is)

Rivas is safe, clean, and easy to reach; it is also resolutely ordinary. The old centre amounts to one church rebuilt after Civil War bombing and a plaza where teenagers practise skateboard tricks. You will not stumble upon hidden mediaeval alleys or sepia-tiled taverns. Come August the lagoon path offers almost no shade, and midday temperatures sit stubbornly in the high thirties—mid-May or late-September are kinder. Finally, remember the park rules: no swimming, no dogs in the reed beds, and no drone footage unless you fancy explaining yourself to Seprona, the rural police division whose four-wheel-drives patrol the dike roads.

Exit Strategy

The last Metro to Madrid leaves at 01:58 on weekends; the gates shut without ceremony. If you miss it, night bus 476 departs from outside the H2O every thirty minutes, depositing you at Plaza de Cibeles just after half-two. Either way, keep your ticket— inspectors occasionally board at the city limit and fines start at €50. Back in central Madrid you can be in bed before the clubs empty, already planning which season to return: April for the stork migration, October for the first amber light on the reeds, or simply next time the capital’s heat feels too metallic and you remember that twenty-five minutes south the breeze still smells of water.