Serrezuela de Valsalobre Natural Monument

Living rock

The Serrezuela is in Valsalobre, one of the mountains’ smallest villages. It is a muela, a flat-topped limestone hill, carved by water over millennia. Inside is a network of caves and passages, some with running water and chambers with stalactites and stalagmites.

Above, at La Torreta and El Tormagal, the limestone opens into swallow holes, shafts and rock alleys, and guide Fernando Carreras maintains that few areas in Spain have so many vertical cavities, such as the Juan Herranz shafts. The pine forest is Scots pine, with barberry, hawthorn and juniper. In May and June the Spanish moon moth, a large green-toned moth, flies in it. The shafts are for cavers: keep away from their entrances.

A landscape with memory

Valsalobre has the mountains’ best-told oral memory: the saltworks, the dehesa or resin, firewood and lavender tell how people lived at the foot of these mountains.

Plan your visit

Before you travel

Do not explore caves without experience, equipment and permission: explore the Serrezuela along its paths.

Combine with

Beteta and the Hoz de Beteta.