Home › Long-distance routes › Tajuña Greenway › Half a day by bike · 16 km, by metro from Madrid

One day🚲By bikeNicolas Vigier — CC0 (Wikimedia Commons)

Arganda → Morata de Tajuña

Arganda del Rey → Morata de Tajuña

The option for going without a car and with children: sixteen flat kilometres from Arganda del Rey to Morata de Tajuña, with the greenway starting two hundred metres from the metro station. You pass through La Poveda, where a historic train of century-old wooden carriages runs along six kilometres of the original line, and follow the Tajuña valley between market gardens. A hundred and ten metres of climb in total: practically flat. Notes: the surface alternates red asphalt and compacted gravel. On the stretch between Morata and Perales there are sharp speed bumps and some sections shared with motor traffic: slow down there, especially with children. The route is linear, so you need to arrange the return; the advantage is that it starts two hundred metres from Arganda metro station, and bikes are allowed all day on Sundays and public holidays, and outside peak hours on other days. This is open countryside in south-eastern Madrid: there is little shade, so carry water. Check the state of the route before setting out.

Stage 1 · Arganda del Rey → Morata de Tajuña

16 km1.5 h1/5

A bike ride from Arganda del Rey to Morata de Tajuña along the greenway, via La Poveda and the Arganda train museum.

Elevation profile

↑ 111 m ↓ 121 m

What to see

StartRodelar — CC BY-SA 4.0 (Wikimedia Commons)

La Poveda and the Arganda train

History / Railway

The route starts two hundred metres from the metro station, on Avenida del Ejército, on the very trackbed used by the old Tajuña railway. At La Poveda, the Vapor Madrid association and the town council have restored six kilometres of line where a historic train with century-old wooden carriages runs, and there is a railway museum.

Tip

'The Arganda train, which whistles more than it moves' was the local saying. The historic train runs on Sundays from March to May and from October to December: check the calendar before you go. And bikes are allowed on the metro all day on Sundays and public holidays.

Jiří Sedláček — CC BY-SA 4.0 (Wikimedia Commons)

Morata de Tajuña

History / Industrial heritage

The first village of the valley, with an industrial past the greenway cuts straight through: Cornicabra station stands in its municipality, and the landscape alternates market gardens with the works that once employed the area.

Tip

The natural end of the short variant. From here you return to Arganda the same way or carry on towards Perales, though that stretch has sharp bumps and some sections shared with cars.