About

The Sierra de Aracena and Picos de Aroche occupy the western part of Sierra Morena where, beaten by humid winds from the Atlantic, are home to white villages of cobbled streets, which appear between large meadows of holm and cork oaks, organic olive groves, orchards and chestnuts.

The slate of which it is composed gives these mountains a hilly character, with gentle slopes, where large valleys of trees alternate with peaks crowned by enclosed woods and gorges, almost magical, along which the main river axes flow: Ribera del Chanza, Múrtigas and Ribera de Huelva. At its greatest altitude, where sandstone is the protagonist, appear singular geological formations, like Gruta de las Maravillas in Aracena, or the Alájar and Zufre travertines, linked to emerging waters. granite is also present, as the batholith of Peñas de Aroche, whose existence has been linked to the rich metal seams that conditioned the region's intense mining activity: Minas de Cala or the Mining Reserve of Teuler.

Fauna and flora

Oak and cork forests dominate a wooded pasture that, where it ends, is accompanied by an undergrowth of strawberry, lavender, mastic, hawthorns and various species of rockrose and juniper. At the greatest altitude, humidity enables the presence of gall oaks and Pyrenean oak, giving rise to an image that is more characteristic of green northern Spain. In the centre of the nature reserve, where limestone is dominant, chestnuts replace these to comprise one of the largest forest masses of the Peninsula. The good condition of these mountains attracts an important community of birds of prey, as is patent by the largest nesting colony of black vultures in Europe, present in Serra Pelada and Rivera del Aserrador. Forest birds and mammals also have a good representation: genet, deer, and boars.

Múrtigas brook, Sillo stream or Montemayor brook are good examples of the exceptional gallery forests that these mountains are home to, where splendid trees allow the existence of amphibians, birds and an exceptional community of continental fish: Iberian barbel and Luciobarbus microcephalus, Anaecypris hispanica, bogue of Guadiana, roach and Tropidophoxinellus alburnoides. You cannot overlook the populations of mushrooms, with the two most famous: tana and gurumelo.