Hi,

I've booked with a friend a flight to Madrid. As we are planning our trip, we are still searching for an area "near" (or a bit further from) Madrid where we can enjoy the nature of this region. Do you know some places where there are nice lakes, rivers, moutains,...?
Thx in advance for the information!

It's full of places, although for most of them you will need a car. The closest place to Madrid is La Pedriza, you can get a bus to Manzanares el Real and then walk a little bit, it's very crowded on weekends and the number of cars that can access is limited. Free camping is forbiden, although I think there is a camping area. It's a nice and interesting place. Other nice places are Cercedilla, Navacerrada and Cotos (you can arrive by train) and Rascafría(bus).
All these places are in sierra de Guadarrama, the closest mountains.
Farther places (2 hours from Madrid) but also interesting are Gredos with a glaciar lake and lot of endemic fauna, Alto Tajo, Hoces del Duratón, sierra de Ayllón.......
Sorry it's not easy to choose...

Thx man, very interesting... so we have two options Sierra Guadarrama or Sierra Gredos.

So there is a nice area above Madrid ( Sierra Guadarrama ), looking on my map I see many campings...Also many lakes, and rivers... ( I hope we can kayak there... ) so that 's allright. And then we have the possibility to visit Segovia, I guess that's also a place to be.

On the other hand we have Sierra Gredos... with Almanzor and Candeleda... I saw many possitive things on the internet of this particular area... But is it worthed to go so far ... knowing we don't have a car. So we depend of the trains and buses...

Well, almost of the lakes are really dams but there are some natural, i.e. the lakes in Peñalara which have a glacial origin (they are protected, you can't go in). I don't know in which of them you can kayak (in Atazar you can).
The landscape it's very different between Guadarrama and Gredos.
Gredos glacial circus and lake are spectacular, it's very rocky, but I can tell you how much it will worth for you...
From Guadarrama's mountains it's easy to go to Segovia, you could go even by bike..