If you are from Madrid or have lived in a town in the Community of Madrid, you know that many of those towns are close to the mountains and that many of them have few inhabitants, since people have been moving to the center, due to the difficulties in finding work and the harsh winters.
That is why, over the last few years, some towns that were left uninhabited began to emerge and in the same way that people stay to celebrate Christmas, it is also fashionable to go and visit some of these abandoned towns throughout the community.
La Marina Sanatorium
Located near the Sierra de Guadarrama, the history of the Marina Sanatorium begins in 1956, where it was a place frequented by tuberculosis patients, a perfect place to recover thanks to the large amount of free land around, in addition of several buildings that belonged to the military in the area.
Although the hospital is currently very dilapidated and it can be dangerous to enter, you can still see some remnants of the past when the hospital functioned without problems. At present, you are going to see many graffiti made by graffiti artists and many broken objects produced by the constant robberies.
In many areas within the hospital we can find documents and medicines from the time, as well as many record books and several prescriptions for harder medicines.
It was a place that in its time had a very good reputation in terms of army health centers, since it had a great team of doctors and nurses who outnumbered the patients, so they could take care of them very well. In addition, the facilities were quite luxurious, they had marble stairs and corridors.
The village of Polvoranca
Located in the current town in the south of Madrid, in Leganés, we can find a church and some small buildings around it in the current Polvoranca park, which in another time, such as when the Church was created, was a separate village. It can currently be seen, but it is surrounded by a fence due to landslides that recently came close to costing the lives of some visitors. It is said that there were a series of underground tunnels that connected with the churches of Leganés and that some of them reached Madrid.
Torote Ash
Fresno de Torote was considered a town within the Castilian aristocracy of the past and was founded by the Marquis of Santillana in the fifteenth century. After being an important town for much of the nobility, after the passing of the years, and due to fights between the owners and the leaders, the town was stopped for a long time, in fact the last inhabitants who lived in the town were the relatives of Félix Martin, a noble worker of the count, who after his death decided to leave the place in 1996
the beauties
In the Lozoya Valley, in the heart of the Sierra del Norte de Madrid, near the municipalities of Piñuecar and Gandullas are Las Bellidas, a town that always had a high level of livestock and agricultural activity, until its people abandoned rural life.
This town was abandoned in 1936, when the last of its inhabitants decided to leave this site, leaving behind many abandoned and semi-destroyed houses and buildings, which is what we can still see if we feel like visiting it. An abandoned town that is perfect to visit, as it is quite beautiful and is not completely far from the population.
Alamin
El Alamín is a small abandoned town that is near the Villa of the meadowwhen the Marquis of Comillas decided to build around 1957 a place for the workers of his farm to live.
The state of the town is quite bad, beyond the normal deterioration due to the passage of time, for a long time the town received visitors who misused it, in addition to organizing many parties in it. In addition, the town has always been accompanied by mystery due to the numerous legends and stories about ghosts and rituals that surrounded it.
This town, at present, is used as a different leisure place, especially for photography sessions, films shot by beginners and one of the best places to do Airsoft battles.
Some of the legends are still very valid, one of them tells us about the death of a herd and its shepherd, who took the cattle to the mountain and the next day they all appeared dead in the same place where they lived This caused the rest of the inhabitants will flee forever. It was always a very characteristic place to walk through its three streets full of dirt, its convent, its church, the school, the bar, the post office, and the around 40 houses that are still standing.
It is located near the Valmayor Reservoir, El Escorial and Collado Villalba and can be accessed through the M-510, from Galapagar and it was a ruined and abandoned town, since 1989.
During the 1980s, especially in the final stage, the 18th century Romanesque church was a refuge for drug addicts from all over the area. In the last few years, some small towns have re-established themselves, although they are frowned upon by the people of the surrounding towns.
These are some of the most recognized abandoned towns and places in the entire Community of Madrid, although it is increasingly common to observe, especially after what happened in the pandemic, how many families or groups of people seek some of these towns to live in a simpler way and surrounded by nature, besides being much cheaper to live like this.