Cardeña-Montoro Mountains Natural Park

Do you feel like taking a breath and escaping from your routine? Take advantage of your visit to the town to escape to this natural paradise which is set deep in the heart of the mountains.

In addition to walk through its monumental area, Montoro offers you this alternative so you can have a special memory of one of its most precious natural treasures: a Natural Park which is located in the foothills of Montoro and Cardeña which was declared a Protected Natural Area by the Government of Andalusia in 1989.

You should know before your visit that this is a great opportunity to let you go by the 38,449 hectares that form a landscape richness in flora and fauna. Moreover, you can practice sports such as mountain biking, equestrian and counselling activities, canoeing or hiking and some others.

Enjoy the nature of the Park through its steep walls, wide valleys, rivers, reservoirs and paths. Without realizing, you will be surrounded by the beauty of a wonderful landscape wherever you look forwards. Its natural entrance door is in Montoro with the “Guadalquivir Meander”, a natural monument which was declared Historical-Artistic Site in 1969, from which you can see the town centre.

How you get there?

Whether you come from Cordoba or Montoro, you will have no problem to get there. The access to the Park is very simple and it is perfectly marked.

On the one hand, if you take Cordoba as your starting point, you will have to get to Montoro by the A-4 dual carriageway and from there you will take the N-420 road directly towards the Park.

If your starting point starts in Montoro, you will be able to take this same road and you will access it in the same way.

It is worth being visited due to …

The beauty of Montoro and Cardeña villages, their delicious cuisine and landscape richness with meadows, the pine forests and the Mediterranean natural forest, where you can find species such as the lynx, the wolf, the Iberian imperial eagle or the otter.

What you can’t miss in your visit:

– The Birds Viewpoint: it is located in the Tejoneras and Dehesa Yeguas reservoirs; a place of rest for the migrations of the herons, egrets, little egrets, grebes, teals and some others.

– Cerezo Hamlet, it has been renovated for rural accommodation in which you will be able to see the traditional rural architecture of the place.

– The landscape of extensive meadows that mark most of part of the environment.

– The collection of mushrooms, the observation of the bellowing and the appreciation of the breeding of the Iberian pig in the meadow.

Interesting places nearby

– Yeguas River. It crosses its eastern slope through large ravines along its 46 km and you can see the steep valley on your way.

– Yeguas River Valley. It is considered a fundamental habitat within this natural enclave and it is an authentic jewel of Sierra Morena in terms of landscape.

– Venta del Charco Hamlet.

– Buenas Hierbas and Martin Gonzalo Reservoirs. The topography that appears in the last sections of the courses of Yeguas river provides favourable circumstances for the construction of reservoirs.

Natural refuge of the Iberian fauna and flora

Once you are in the Park, you will enjoy the lush vegetation as a meadow and gallery woodlands that have a very interesting fauna, drawing amazing landscapes that you will not be able to let escape with your photographs. One of the most appealing things of the area is the population of roble melojo or rebollo in the Venta del Charco, since it is one of the few forest masses of this species in Andalusia at present and the only one of the province.

Despite of the existence of a wide range of protected and unprotected species within the Park, you will be able to admire the fauna that lives there in your visit, such as the deer, the wild boar, the partridges, the otters and hares or the rabbits.

There is also a wide range of raptors– the Iberian imperial and royal eagle, the black vulture, the White and Black stork. The lynx, the badger, the fox, the genet and the eagle owl live in the most enclosed mountains.