Burgos Natural Spaces
Las Merindades
Las Merindades form a region which spreads over and occupies the
whole northern third of the province of Burgos. A privileged bio-geographical
crossroads where in an almost magical fashion an inexhaustible
succession of mountains, valleys, woods, rivers, waterfalls, caves
and gorges alternate. A land that is always green where man has
left his mark since the remotest prehistorical times and which
hides dozens of villages full of copious heritage, old traditions
and limitless hospitality. In short, a seductive region where
the traveller will discover, apart from one of the largest caves
in the world, the highest concentration of hermitages, castles,
Romanesque churches, palaces and ancestral homes in the whole
of Spain.
Las Merindades model the greenest territory in Burgos, at its
most northern tip. A place of unforgettable landscape where it
is very easy to be reunited with the essence of unchanged Nature.
An Eden for History and Art lovers and for those in search of
new and tempting sensations related to Rural Tourism.
The Karstic Complex of Ojo Guareña
The Karstic Complex of Ojo Guareña is, with its almost
one hundred kilometres, the most extensive area of caves in the
Iberian Peninsula, and it can be included among the ten largest
of the planet. Apart from its indisputable potholing interest,
several prehistorical sanctuaries and a series of exclusive invertebrates
have been located on the inside.
The archaeology, history and magic legends that impregnate the
Valley of Sotoscueva convert the "Natural Monument"
of Ojo Guareña into one of the few places in the world
where the evolution of religion –from Palaeolithic to our
days- of the western man can be clearly followed, not missing
any key period.
Interested visitors can get to know some of the caves that form
part of the complex. Apart from a visit to the "Ojo del Guareña"
and to the hermitage and cave of St. Bernabe, visits for reduced
groups accompanied by expert guides have been organised to the
inside of the Palomera Cave.
The Sierra de la Demanda
Is a singular mountain system, which rises to the south-east of
the province of Burgos. In the shade of its majestic and almost
always snow-covered mountain tops a series of landscape and human
elements are combined, making the area into an attractive natural
and tourist paradise. Next to some luxuriant and extensive woods
an unending succession of glacier origin lakes are located. Next
to the curious sites of marks of dinosaurs and fossil trees one
can visit the greatest concentration of necropolis and high-mediaeval
hermitages in Europe. And leading an unrepeatable group of Romanesque
porches there are many villages loaded down with a rich popular
heritage based on three fundamental pillars: the transhumance
of the "merino" sheep, the age-old road activity and
forest work.
The main feature of these lands is a privileged and unrepeatable
landscape. Nature in its purest state where magical and shady
woods of beech trees, oaks, holly trees, birch trees and pine
trees stand out.
The Sierra de la Demanda is an elongated massif, belonging to
the Iberian System, which rises in the south-east of Burgos. Articulated
around three mountainous areas, the Sierras of San Millan, Mencilla
and Neila, its maximum height, also the highest point of the province,
being the 2,131 metres of the San Millan peak. From the geomorphologic
viewpoint, the Sierra de la Demanda is very interesting to scientists
as its predominant materials -slate, schist and quartzite- date
back to Palaeozoic times and are among the oldest in the Iberian
Peninsula.
Initially declared to be a Nature Reserve, the Sierra de la Demanda
is a real biogeographical crossing -a kind of island with humid
and Euro-Siberian climate in a predominant dry and Mediterranean
world- where extensive gall oak groves, shady beech groves and
real forests of Scotch pine cover the majority of the territory.
Birch trees, holly trees and yew trees are other species of trees
present here. In these woods a varied group of mammals take refuge,
such as wolves, roe deer, deer, wild cats, grey dormice, badgers,
otters and the small desman of the Pyrenees. Birds are also very
well represented in this mountain region of Burgos: golden, booted
and short-toed eagles, northern goshwak, Eurasian sparrowhawk,
European honey-buzzard, golden owl, woodcock, partridge (perdix
perdix), marsh tit and Eurasian treecreeper.
The beech groves of Santa Cruz, the meadows of oaks of Huerta
de Arriba, Monterrubio and Tolbaños de Abajo, the holly
grove and the birch grove of Pineda, the high course of the Pedroso,Las
Calderas and the group of glacial lakes of Neila, Haedillo and
Muñalaba are some of the privileged spots that are hidden
away in the sierra of Burgos.
These mountains are ideal to practice trekking. The way up to
the St. Millan from Santa Cruz del Valle Urbion, wandering around
the cirques and glacial lakes of Neila, visiting the spot of Las
Calderas, the ascent to the Muñalaba peak, the route through
the necropolis of Quintanar de la Sierra and the old mining rail
line are some of the most attractive and emblematic routes.
Burgos guide