Morata de Tajuña

Thirty kilometres south-east of Madrid, the motorway drops suddenly to river level. At 537 metres, Morata de Tajuña sits low enough for the air to feel thicker, warmer and faintly scented with celery. This is the vega proper—the alluvial plain that still feeds the capital—and the village behaves like market-garden royalty: slow, self-assured and faintly amused by visitors who think they’ve left the city behind.

A grid that remembers the harvest

The centre is laid out for ox-carts, not cars. Calle Real runs straight from the A-3 slip road to the river; side streets are just wide enough for a tractor with a trailer of lettuces. Stone houses from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries keep their original ground-floor stables—now garages or tiled taverns—while iron balconies sag under pots of geraniums. Nothing is prettified; render flakes, dogs stretch across doorways, and the weekly market on Plaza Mayor still sells work boots, not fridge magnets.

The church tower of Nuestra Señora de la Antuga acts as the unofficial town clock. Built in the 1500s from local red sandstone, it turns amber at dusk and is visible from every approach road. Inside, the Baroque altarpiece glitters with gilt that local farmers once paid for in wheat. Doors open around 10 a.m. and close for lunch; turn up at midday and you’ll meet the sacristan locking up while he explains, without rancour, that “Dios también descansa”.

Up the hill and down to the water

Behind the church a dirt track climbs to the castle ruins. What remains is less a ruin than a lesson in modesty: two walls, a few courses of masonry and foundations carpeted with wild thyme. The reward is the view south across the Tajuña valley, a chessboard of irrigated plots that changes colour every fortnight—emerald spinach, white plastic greenhouses, then the blond stubble of harvested barley. Bring binoculars and you can pick out the melon fields that supply Mercamadrid before dawn.

Drop back down to the river by following the sign-posted “senda ecológica”. The path is only 1.5 km but it threads through poplars and old allotments where elderly señores hoe barefoot. Mid-May sees the water running low and warm; families set up folding tables on the pebble shore and grill chorizos over disposable barbecues. The smell drifts across to the campsite—basic, €15 a night, showers included—and explains why half of Madrid keeps a caravan here.

What arrives on the plate

Restaurants line the main road because that is where the traffic is, but the better food hides one block back. At Mesón El Cid a lunch menu costs €14 and starts with a clay dish of migas—fried breadcrumbs, garlic, grapes and bits of bacon—followed by cordero a la pastora, lamb simmered with onion and sweet pepper until it surrenders. The wine list is short and local: look for “Argüeso” or “Los Llanos”, both from neighbouring Chinchón, and expect to pay €12 a bottle retail, €18 in situ. Pudding is usually arroz con leche, served tepid with a skin of cinnamon thick enough to spoon up like custard.

Vegetarians survive on tortilla, salads and the excellent local cheese, a semi-cured goat’s milk called “vega” that tastes of thyme and river mist. If you self-cater, the Saturday market sells honey from Colmenar de Oreja and vegetables picked the same morning; tomatoes still hold the morning heat and cost €2 a kilo even in April.

Walking without a rucksack

The Camino Natural del Tajuña follows the river for 50 km, but you needn’t commit to the full route. Start at the old railway station (now an interpretation centre with clean loos) and head downstream for 40 minutes until the path crosses an irrigation channel. Turn left along the concrete ridge and you’re back in town via allotments where every gate is decorated with a battered wellington boot planted with pansies. Total distance: 4 km, flat, dog-friendly.

Cyclists can rent hybrids at the petrol station on the main road—€20 for four hours, helmet thrown in—and follow signed agricultural tracks to Valdelaguna, six kilometres away. The surface is hard-packed but dust devils rise in July; carry water because the only bar on route opens unpredictably.

When the village lets its hair down

Mid-September brings the fiestas patronales in honour of the Virgin of Antigua. The programme is pinned up in the post office window and follows a rigid formula: Friday night rock concert on the football pitch, Saturday midday gigantes procession, Sunday morning mass followed by paella for 2,000 cooked in a pan three metres wide. Visitors are welcome but there is no tourist desk; buy drink tickets from the kiosk with the longest queue and you’ll pay the local price—€2 for a caña, €3 for a rebujito.

January 17 is San Antón. At midday the priest blesses animals in the square: hunting dogs, glossy horses, the occasional pet rabbit in a cage. A bonfire of Christmas trees is lit at dusk and the village choir hands out anisette. The event lasts two hours, smells of pine resin and wet fur, and is over by nine o’clock.

Getting there, getting out

By car, leave the A-3 at junction 44; the slip road deposits you at the western entrance, 35 minutes from central Madrid in light traffic. On weekdays the last return bus leaves at 20:15 from Estación Sur (platform 22); a single is €3.60 and journey time is 55 minutes, longer if the driver stops for a cigarette in Rivas. Sunday service is skeletal—two buses, both morning.

Parking is free on the streets, €1 a day in the marked bays near the health centre. Ignore the dirt lot behind the supermarket; it turns to mud after the slightest rain and the local lads use it for wheel spins.

The fine print

Summer midday heat is brutal—38 °C is routine—and shade is scarce on the castle hill. April and late-October give you 22 °C and clear light; mist rises off the river at dawn and photographers get that soft, golden tone without filters. Winter is crisp, often 10 °C warmer than Madrid because the river bowl traps warmth, but nights drop to freezing and most bars wheel their terraces indoors.

Accommodation is limited to three guesthouses and the riverside campsite. Casa Rural La Vega has three doubles (€70, breakfast €6 extra) and a plunge pool that is genuinely cold. Book ahead for weekends; Madrilenians treat the village like their garden and descend en family groups.

Come for half a day and you’ll tick the sights. Stay for lunch, add a riverside stroll and you’ll understand why Madrid still relies on these fields for lettuces. Leave before the last bus and the place folds back into itself—shutters close, the square empties and the only sound is the irrigation water gurgling through hidden channels, heading uphill to tomorrow’s crops.