Las Navas del Marqués is a municipality located in the province of Ávila

Ávila (province)

Ávila is a province of central-western Spain, in the southern part of the autonomous community of Castile and León. It is bordered on the south by the provinces of Toledo and Cáceres, on the west by Salamanca, on the north by Valladolid, and on the east by Segovia and Madrid. Ávila has a...

, Castile and León

Castile and León

Castile and León is an autonomous community in north-western Spain. It was so constituted in 1983 and it comprises the historical regions of León and Old Castile...

, Spain

Spain

Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

.It is 82 km to the northwest of Madrid. There are some different options to travel there from Madrid or Avila: you can go by car or by train. Although the train station is roughly 2 km away from the town, there are many buses that you can take every time you arrive here by train. There are trains every day connecting Las Navas to Madrid or Las Navas to Ávila.
According to the 2007 census

Census

A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring and recording information about the members of a given population. It is a regularly occurring and official count of a particular population. The term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common...

 (INE

Instituto Nacional de Estadística (Spain)

The National Institute of Statistics is the official organisation in Spain that collects statistics about demography, economy, and Spanish society. Every 10 years, this organisation conducts a national census. The last census took place in 2001....

), the municipality has a population of 5,098 inhabitants.
According to statistics from 1st January 2009, Las Navas del Marqués had a population of 5.723 inhabitants.
In summer, the population is five times bigger because the municipality receives a lot of people from Madrid who spend their summer here because it is less hot than in the city.

Flora

Las Navas del Marqués is surrounded by huge pine forests. A lot of people come from Madrid every weekend to enjoy walking through them and to benefit from the fresh air.
The municipality has a fresh oak grove around called “La Fuente del Sauco” and in the summer people go there to have lunch and dinner.

Fauna

The surroundings of Las Navas del Marqués is home to many different species of wildlife, the most important one being the black stork

Black Stork

The Black Stork Ciconia nigra is a large wading bird in the stork family Ciconiidae. It is a widespread, but rare, species that breeds in the warmer parts of Europe, predominantly in central and eastern regions. This is a shy and wary species, unlike the closely related White Stork. It is seen in...

.

MONUMENTS

Some important monuments that are interesting to visit are the palace-castle of Magalia which was built in the 16th century and holds important events every year; San Juan Bautista Church, and San Pablo Convent which was left until 2007, now it shows temporal art exhibitions.

FESTIVALS

The most important events in Las Navas are their summer festivals. They start on the second Sunday of July and they are celebrated in honor of the Cristo de Gracia. The festival week is opened with a firework display and during the week there are races, as well as sports and food competitions, bullfights and open-air dancing.
It is worth noting the Valladal Pilgrimage on the 15th August, in which people wear costumes and go to the countryside in floats and horses. There they have lunch and play games together (like greasey pole, sack races..) and then they decide which is the best float and the best horse.

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