Logbook · 4 places

What to see and do in Neila

What to see and do in Neila (Sierra de la Demanda, Burgos): 4 places across monuments, nature, activities and curiosities, with a photo and a Google Maps location.

1 Villages · 2 Nature · 1 Activities

How far each place is from the centre of Neila

The glacial lakes of Neila 5.1 km

Towns near Neila

Spain › Castile and León › Burgos › Sierra de la Demanda › Neila

What to see and do in Neila

Neila
Village
Neila is a town in the province of Burgos, in the Sierra de la Demanda, at the bottom of a valley at 1,163 meters, near the point where Burgos, Soria and La Rioja meet, north of the sierra that gives it its name, between the Demanda and the Urbión. It is organized into three districts —San Miguel, La Pinilla and Santa María, at whose center the Neila river is born— and preserves popular architecture. Inhabited by Pelendones, Romans and Visigoths, beneath its church of Santa María a temple from this last period was found; the Romanesque church of San Miguel was inaugurated, according to the first surviving document, in 1125. In the Middle Ages it belonged to the Alfoz de Lara and in 1273 it was head of a Cañada Real, with representation on the Honorable Council of the Mesta. Its mountains have formed, since 2008, the natural park of the Glacial Lagoons of Neila.
The glacial lakes of Neila
Nature
A group of lakes formed in glacial cirques surrounded by peaks of around 2,000 metres, south of the Sierra de la Demanda, declared a nature park on 9 December 2008, covering the 6,290 hectares of the municipality of Neila. It is divided into two groups: the Lagunas Altas, at the foot of the La Campiña massif —Larga, Negra, de la Cascada, Corta, de Los Patos, Brava and de Las Pardillas—, and the lagunas Oruga and Muñalba, to the southeast. Between 1969 and 1972 the complex was converted for tourism and fishing use, with dikes and paths that altered the moraines; the structural problems of those dikes and the wish to restore the site to a natural state led, between 2001 and 2002, to the removal of the dike at laguna Corta and the lowering of those at Larga and de la Cascada.
The Laguna Negra of Neila
Nature
The Laguna Negra de Neila lies at about 1,900 metres above sea level, in the Sistema Ibérico range in Burgos province, within the nature park of the Lagunas Glaciares de Neila. At twelve hectares it is the largest lake in the whole Sistema Ibérico and the most perfectly formed of glacial origin, created more than 10,000 years ago by the erosion of the ice that covered these peaks. Beside it lie the Laguna Larga and, in a lower cirque, that of la Cascada, with which it shares prominence in the natural area; together they complete, at the foot of La Campiña (2,049 metres), the group of the Lagunas Altas. It is surrounded by Scots pine forests and, on the shaded slopes, small beech groves, and beside it stands an old cottage once used by the forest rangers who watched over the fishing.
The climb to the Lagunas Altas
Activity
A mountain road and several paths make it possible to link in a single day the lagoons of the glacial cirque, among Scots pine woods, heaths and screes, with viewpoints over the whole from above 1,900 metres.