El Escorial - Calzada Romana - Machota Baja

Nice circular route which we did on the first real summer day of the year (>25ºC). We left the car at the offical parking lot of the Silla de Felipe II (although a lot of people don´t even want to walk the remaining 2 km and leave the car literally next to the Silla...), which is at the right hand side of the M505 (coming from El Escorial).
After crossing the road we toke the first trail on the left (Camino del Castañar). This is a flat, very green (during springtime) part of the route, which ends at a gate (see waypoint "puerta"). There we turned right and followed the trail along the railway Madrid-Ávila for about 2 km. Not very exciting but good to warm up the muscles. After some short curves, we toke the trail at our right and after about 500 m we arrived at the small part of what is left from the old Roman Road (Calzada Romana), which is believed to belong to the Calzada de la Fuenfría. Following the calzada we turned right after about 1 km, where the brick wall on the right hand side which seperates the Calzada with a private property turns right. At the end of this trail again to the right untill the gate that closes the road (indeed, this part of the route goes through another private property but the path itself is public).
Turning left is where the climb to the pass "Collado de Entrecabezas" starts. During this climb we "suffered" the high temperatures, which were not as high as during summertime but after a long cold winter you notice the radical change... At the pass (see waypoint) we turned left, and climbed to the Machota Baja to enjoy the cool breeze and the fabulous views from its top: El Escorial and Abantos at our north-west, the Sierra de Guadarrama more to the north, the water reservoir of "Valmayor" at the east, the roofs of the village Zarzalejo at the foot of the Machotas and the peaks of the Sierra de Gredos at our west.
Once back at the pass you can choose to climb the Machota Alta as well, but we left that one for anoyther day and went down via the same track. Again after about 1 km from the pass we encountered a bifurcation. When going up we came from the right but now we followed our way to the left in the direction of the Senda Ecológica where we turned right to the Silla de Felipe II. Here you can enjoy the view or a good beer (we did the latter...) and follow the path behind the Silla (in order to avoid the busy asphalt road)towards the parking lot again.

- Route Milestones: Aparcamiento M505/GR10 (950 m) - Fuente de la Prosperidad - Camino del Castañar - Camino de Méntrida - Calzada Romana - Camino del Chicharrón - Prado de los Reyes - Camino de Arenitas - Collado de Entrecabezas (1.272 m) - MachotaBaja (1.404 m) - Collado - Senda Ecológica - Silla Felipe II - Aparcamiento

- Moving time: 3 hr 45 min
- Moving avg: 3,8 km/hr

- Realizada el 25/04/2010