Logbook · 3 places

What to see and do in El Arenal

What to see and do in El Arenal (Arenas de San Pedro, Ávila): 3 places across monuments, nature, activities and curiosities, with a photo and a Google Maps location.

1 Villages · 1 Nature · 1 Food and drink

Towns near El Arenal

Spain › Castile and León › Ávila › Arenas de San Pedro › El Arenal

What to see and do in El Arenal

El Arenal
Village
El Arenal is a town of about 961 inhabitants at 888 metres above sea level on the southern slope of the sierra de Gredos, one of the few villages whose entire municipal territory lies within the regional park. It arose around 1400 as a hamlet of the land of Arenas and gained the title of town, with 2,710 hectares of its own territory, by a privilege signed in Seville by Philip V on 6 August 1732. It reached its population peak in 1945, with 2,320 inhabitants, before emigration to France, Madrid or Barcelona cut the figure to a little over a thousand. Chestnut and cherry trees, together with tourism, have been its main sources of income, and its white beans are typical. It preserves a 15th-century church and eight spring fountains with large stone troughs.
The regional park of the Sierra de Gredos
Nature
The Sierra de Gredos Regional Park protects 86,236 hectares at the southern end of the province of Ávila, in Castile and León, designated on 20 June 1996. El Arenal, at 888 metres above sea level, is one of the few villages whose entire municipal area lies within the park, on the southern slope of the range. The landscape, carved out of a large granite batholith, brings together in a small space riverside poplar and alder groves, vineyards and rain-fed olive trees, and pine forests home to the Iberian ibex; tree cover extends up to 1,500–1,600 metres, with holm oak woods up to 900 metres and Pyrenean oak woods or pine forests above that. Willows, alders and poplars grow along the riverbanks, and the wildlife includes the Pyrenean desman, the otter, the lynx and the black stork.
The "moragá" of November 1st (chestnut roast)
Food and drink
On All Saints' Day the local people go out into the country to roast chestnuts over bonfires, a custom that in other villages of southern Gredos is called calbotada and that closes the season of gathering the fruit.