Lozoyuela-Navas-Sieteiglesias

The thermometer on the chemist’s wall in Lozoyuela read 8 °C at eleven on a late-April morning, while back in central Madrid the same hour was nudging 18 °C. That ten-degree drop is the first thing that strikes visitors who climb the A-1 to the Sierra Norte and swing off at kilometre 67: the air thins, oak woods replace apartment blocks, and the capital’s roar fades to a faint hum somewhere below the ridge.

Lozoyuela-Navas-Sieteiglesias is not one village but three, stitched together under a single municipal council and a collective mouthful of a name. Each settlement sits on its own shelf of granite between 1,000 and 1,150 m, high enough for snow to block the CM-615 several times each winter and for July nights to demand a jumper. The 5,000 permanent residents live in low stone houses with clay-tile roofs and vegetable plots that run down to the lane, giving the place the feel of a working landscape rather than a weekend stage set.

Three Heads on One Shoulder

Lozoyuela, the largest, has the only bank machine, the Saturday market and the medical centre. Its parish church, rebuilt after a fire in 1942, keeps the tower but little medieval fabric; more interesting is the scatter of early-twentieth-century summer houses built by Madrid families fleeing the city heat. Their wooden balconies and iron gutters still outnumber the aluminium replacements.

Navas de Buitrago, 3 km east, is smaller, quieter and almost entirely residential. There is no monument to speak of—just narrow lanes where dogs sleep in the shade and elderly residents carry shopping up from the single bus stop. The pleasure here is architectural detail: granite doorways carved with the original owner’s initials, rooflines finished with curved tiles to deflect the wind that races down the Lozoya valley.

Sieteiglesias, another 2 km south, rewards anyone who bothers to park. The name means “seven churches” although only one, the sixteenth-century Iglesia de San Juan Bautista, remains open. Around it curls a tight knot of streets barely two metres wide, built for mules, not cars. The stone is darker here, almost black in places, thanks to the slate that underlies the hill. Locals claim the village records 48 days of fog each year; even on a clear morning the temperature can dip below freezing in December and January.

Walking the Triangle

A web of footpaths links the three nuclei. The shortest hop—Lozoyuela to Sieteiglesias—takes 45 minutes on the PR-M 14, a dusty track that threads between goat paddocks and young oak plantations. Signposting is sporadic; downloading the free Wikiloc file before leaving the tarmac saves a lot of back-tracking. Mid-way you pass the Fuente del Pino, a stone trough fed by a perennial spring whose water is safe to drink if it has rained recently; in August the flow slows to a trickle and the trough turns green with algae.

Longer circuits drop into the Lozoya gorge and climb again, gaining 300 m of ascent. These routes are way-marked but not groomed: after rain the clay sticks to boots like wet cement, and in July the exposed sections radiate heat. Carry a litre of water per person; there is no bar between villages and the fountain in Navas was capped years ago.

Mountain bikers use the same web of farm tracks. The gradients are honest—anything marked “callejón” on the map hits 12–15 %—and the surface alternates between packed grit and fist-sized loose stone. A popular 22 km loop starts at Lozoyuela, climbs to the pine plantations above Sieteiglesias, then descends on the old charcoal-makers’ trail to finish with a beer at the Bar Centro for €2.20. Road cyclists stick to the CM-615 and its spurs: traffic is light but the camber is vicious and winter grit eats brake blocks.

What You Don’t Get

There is no Renaissance plaza, no Michelin plate, no craft-beer taproom. The single bakery in Lozoyuela shuts at 13:30 and does not reopen; if you want lunch after 16:00 you had better bring sandwiches. The municipality’s museum is a locked glass cabinet in the town hall foyer, open only when the clerk remembers to fetch the key. Even the famous oak woods are—well—woods: no visitor centre, no gift shop, just trees and the occasional sign reminding you that gathering mushrooms requires a €10 regional permit.

That sparseness is precisely what draws Madrilenians who have tired of Pedraza’s coach parties or Patones’ Instagram queues. On weekdays you can walk for an hour and meet nobody except a farmer on a quad bike checking his sheep. Silence, or rather the sub-audible buzz of wind and distant crows, feels like a commodity in short supply elsewhere.

Seasonal Arithmetic

April and May are the kindest months. Daytime temperatures reach 18–20 °C, wild marjoram scents the paths and the oaks are still wearing last year’s russet leaves alongside the new green. September repeats the trick, with the added bonus of blackberry picking along the field edges. Both periods coincide with Spanish school terms, so weekend walkers are overwhelmingly local; accommodation prices stay flat and the Bar Centro still has tables free at 14:00.

High summer is a mixed bargain. Nights drop to 14 °C, perfect for sleeping, but midday sun at this altitude burns faster than on the coast. The ayuntamiento sometimes imposes fire restrictions, closing forest tracks when the wind rises above 30 km/h. If you arrive to find a red-and-white barrier across your chosen route, drive on to Buitrago del Lozoya and swim in the river instead.

Winter is serious. Snow can fall from November to March; the CM-615 is usually cleared by mid-morning, but the side road into Sieteiglesias becomes a polished ribbon of ice that defeats even four-wheel drive. When that happens the village shop stocks up on tins and the elderly stay indoors. Visitors who relish the hush of a snowy oak wood should bring walking poles and micro-spikes; the Guardia Civil will fine drivers who block the gritting lorries.

Beds, Bread and Petrol

Accommodation is limited to four small guesthouses, none with more than eight rooms. The pick is La Casa del Monte in Lozoyuela (doubles €70–€85, breakfast €8), a 1920s stone house whose owner, a retired geography teacher, can lend laminated walking maps and will explain why the local slate fractures in hexagons. The only petrol pump is a 24-hour self-service station on the A-1 at kilometre 69; the villages themselves have none, so fill up before you leave the motorway.

The Saturday morning market occupies the tiny Plaza de la Constitución from 09:00 until stocks run out. Stallholders arrive from Colmenar Viejo with fruit, cheese and the regional speciality, chicharrón de Burgos—a cold, pressed pork terrine that travels well in a rucksack. Bread can be bought from the bakery on Calle Real; their baguette, called a “barra” here, keeps for roughly one Spanish afternoon before turning to concrete.

Getting In, Getting Out

From Madrid’s Plaza de Castilla, bus 191 to Buitrago del Lozaya runs hourly on weekdays; change there to the 191A, a minibus that meanders through the three villages three times a day. Total journey time is two hours and ten minutes—slower than the car but cheaper than the €15.30 toll on the A-1 if you leave the motorway at Miraflores. Drivers should note that Google Maps underestimates travel time by fifteen minutes because it ignores the gradient; the climb from the Guadalix reservoir to Lozoyuela is a steady 6 % and lorry queues can form behind agricultural traffic.

Worth the Detour?

If your holiday checklist includes Moorish arches or modernist tapas, keep driving. Lozoyuela-Navas-Sieteiglesias offers instead a calibrated sense of altitude: the way breath shortens on a frosty morning, the abrupt transition from holm oak to Scots pine at 1,200 m, the realisation that Madrid’s lights lie only 55 km away yet feel irrelevant. Come with waterproof soles, a sense of topographic curiosity and no expectation of being entertained. The villages will not charm you; they will simply let you exist at their pace, and for some visitors that is entertainment enough.