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Beech forest of Montejo

Montejo de la Sierra, Sierra Norte, Madrid

1 Villages · 1 Nature · 1 Activities · 1 Historical milestones

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Beech forest of Montejo

Nature · Montejo de la Sierra, Sierra Norte, Madrid

The Hayedo de Montejo is a 250-hectare beech wood on the lower slopes of the sierra de Ayllón, in the municipality of Montejo de la Sierra, in the north of the Community of Madrid on the border with Guadalajara, next to the Jarama river; it is one of the southernmost beech woods in Europe. Its beeches, over twenty metres tall, mix with oaks, birches and hollies. Together with the beech woods of Tejera Negra, in Guadalajara, and La Pedrosa, in Segovia, it preserves the damp forest that once covered the Sistema Central. It was declared a Sitio Natural de Interés Nacional (a former national category of nature protection in Spain) in 1974 and, in 2017, Unesco added it as a World Heritage site, within the extension of the primeval beech forests of the Carpathians and other regions of Europe.

Photo: Jarmad78 (CC BY-SA 3.0)

What to see and do in Montejo de la Sierra