Logbook · 3 places

The regional park of the Sierra de Gredos

El Arenal, Arenas de San Pedro, Ávila

1 Villages · 1 Nature · 1 Food and drink

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The regional park of the Sierra de Gredos

Nature · El Arenal, Arenas de San Pedro, Ávila

Image of El Arenal, not of the place itself.

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.

Photo: Axel Schlaefer (CC BY-SA 3.0)

What to see and do in El Arenal