Alto Tajo and headwaters · memory of the water
Gallo: from El Tremedal to Molina and the Tagus
From El Tremedal to Molina and through the Barranco de la Hoz: the Gallo cuts through Triassic red sandstone and joins the Tagus at the San Pedro bridge.
- Headwaters
- Sierra del Tremedal, around Orihuela del Tremedal.
- downstream
- Tagus, around the Puente de San Pedro.
Fed by this network
The Gallo rises in the Sierra del Tremedal, near Orihuela del Tremedal, flowing down toward Molina de Aragón. There it is spanned by the 12th–13th century Old Bridge, built entirely of red sandstone with three segmental arches resting on piers with cutwaters, connecting the San Francisco quarter with the historic citadel.
The Gallo receives the Arandilla and Bullones rivers. At Torete it emerges from the Barranco de la Hoz after gathering the Bullones; its poplar grove offers one of the most pleasant riverside recreational areas in the Alto Tajo.
Between Corduente and Ventosa the river has carved the Barranco de la Hoz, a sheer canyon of reddish cliffs hundreds of metres high carved into 250-million-year-old sandstone and conglomerate. It is recognised as a geosite of international relevance. Within the gorge sits the Sanctuary of the Virgen de la Hoz, whose sacred image was according to tradition discovered in 1129 by a young shepherd from Ventosa.
The Gallo terminates at the Puente de San Pedro near Zaorejas, joining the Tagus where both streams flow side by side with contrasting colors for several hundred metres.
Memory we can follow
1138 – 1813
A chartered border town
Molina stands on the banks of the Gallo. Endowed with its own royal charter since 1154, its territory was organised into four administrative sexmas until 1813: Campo, Pedregal, Sabinar, and Sierra.
Read the story →450 million years ago – today
Rock layers of the gorge
In the Gallo canyon, the rock folds of Cuevas Labradas were buckled like an accordion as the Earth uplifted the Pyrenees and Alps. The red sandstone walls originate from a floodplain of red rivers 250 million years ago.
Read the story →1936 – 1939 and the postwar years
The contested river crossing
Where the Gallo meets the Tagus, the San Pedro bridge was one of the most contested crossings of the Civil War front line, witnessing skirmishes between Requetés and Republican troops in 1936 and 1937.
Read the story →Villages to read this basin from
These are gateways to its headwaters, valleys, and memory. The selection gathers regional villages; it does not imply the entire municipality drains into this river.
Traces of the river and its basin
Lands united by water
Sources of this reading
Linked memory stories include their own cited sources. Fluvial connections refer to this specific stream; names like Salado and Tajuelo also recur in other basins.