Callejones de Las Majadas

Stone streets

Los Callejones in Las Majadas are a karst maze in Late Cretaceous dolostone. Water dissolved the rock along fissures, leaving streets, locally called bogaces, between blocks of very different shapes, the tormos, isolated rock towers. It is one of the area’s best karst landscapes, of stone and woodland.

Azerbaijan in Las Majadas

In 1999 Los Callejones stood in for Azerbaijan in Michael Apted’s James Bond film The World Is Not Enough, with Pierce Brosnan and Sophie Marceau. For about two weeks lorries and pipes arrived for an oil-pipeline set, and a temple entrance was built in papier-mâché among the rocks; a helicopter placed an office among the stone formations. According to the radio, several hundred provincial residents worked as extras, some as pipeline workers and others as locals opposing it. One extra remembers buses leaving Cuenca before dawn, waiting hours while lights were prepared with the actor’s double, a protest when work exceeded eight hours and five thousand pesetas per day. A Las Majadas hospitality worker remembers the actor greeting his mother with a kiss, neither of them recognising him. All of it was temporary scenery.

Plan your visit

PNSC-S2, Los Callejones, explores the passages and tormos in about 4 km. Nearby is PNSC-S9, Los Lagunillos, an easy 1 km walk along the upper Escabas among pine forests.

Before you travel

Do not leave the trails: it is easy to get lost among the rocks, and the stone is slippery when damp.

Combine with

The Tío Cogote viewpoint, Cascada del Fraile, Cueva de los Moros, with its legends, and Dehesa de los Olmos, with its seasonal waterfall.