Top 5 Things to Do in Buitrago del Lozoya, Madrid

The short answer

Buitrago del Lozoya is the Comunidad's best medieval surprise: the only town in the region that keeps its full circuit of walls — 11th-century Moorish masonry patched by Castile — wrapped on three sides by the green moat of the Lozoya river. Inside: a castle, a Mudéjar church tower, lanes that empty by dusk; and, improbably, a Picasso museum built on the collection the artist gave his Buitrago-born barber, Eugenio Arias.

The list, ranked

1. The wall walk — The adarve path along the battlements — river on three sides, Somosierra on the horizon. The coracha tower and clock-gate are the highlights.

2. Museo Picasso — Colección Arias — Sixty-plus works dedicated to his barber and friend over 26 years of exile haircuts — free, and genuinely moving.

3. The river beach — The Lozoya's dammed pool below the walls — official summer swimming with the battlements as backdrop.

4. Sierra del Rincón & Montejo's beech wood — The UNESCO biosphere reserve up the valley — the Hayedo de Montejo's ancient beeches (book the guided entry) blaze copper in late October.

5. Walls, bridge & the Lozoya bend — 4 km · 1.5 h. Puerta del Piloncillo → full adarve wall circuit → down to the old bridge → the riverside path around the meander for the classic across-the-water view of the whole walled town. Short, and entirely photogenic.

Make a day of it

Bus 191 from Plaza de Castilla (~1 h 15, roughly hourly). Drivers take the A-1 to exit 74 (55 min) — the same road continues to the Hayedo de Montejo and the Sierra del Rincón villages. No rail.