Calle Peñota

The name comes down from the mountains. Peñota recalls La Peñota, a granite massif of 1,945 meters that rises between Madrid and Segovia, its eastern slope in Cercedilla. The word says what it is: a large crag, rock enlarged by its suffix, a summit carved by erosion into three peaks crowned by a geodesic marker. The street does not stand alone. It belongs to a group of streets named after summits of the Guadarrama, near Peñalara and others devoted to peaks of the range. Whoever walks them treads, without knowing it, a small mountain range traced on the city’s map. From the top of La Peñota the view reaches El Escorial and Mount Abantos, and in the distance the silhouette of the Mujer Muerta in Segovia. On its southern slope survives the Pino Solitario: a Scots pine over 350 years old that withstood a great fire and ranks among the largest of its species in Spain.