El Ventanón: an impressive natural bridge

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A fantastic vista through a natural window.

INTRODUCTION

"El Ventanón" is a natural bridge carved into a limestone ridge. The geological origin must be sought into the fact that water streams often sink into gaps which are located close to the edge of a limestone plateau. When such a stream dissolves a lot of limestone it can form a short but very large cave. The "El Ventanón" bridge is what remains of the roof of such a cave. The stream literally flowed below the bridge. The bridge of "El Ventanón" has a length of 30 meters and a height of 20 meters and is several meters wide. On the left side of the bridge we have found some small caves, which is an additional indication of a solutional cavernous origin of this bridge.
This geological phenomenon is included in a local walking route called the PRC-BU 32, which starts at the Ojo Guareña cave. Part of his cave, with a total length of more than 110 kilometers (110,000 meters) of galleries is one of the longest caves of Spain, can also be visited as a show cave.

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Mountain hike to a millennial Taxus baccata tree.

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Yesterday afternoon we went for a trip to visit a millennial Taxus baccata. This tree stands completely alone and isolated at the foot of some high mountain peaks. So it was quite a climb, especially since there is no clear path going to the yew. The Taxus baccata is a very poisonous yew tree, although the cattle and specially the goats sometimes eat the twigs. The only edible substance of the tree is the red flesh of the fruits, although the kernel is poisonous again. The best is to be very careful when eating the fruits or simply not eating them at all.


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The Natural Park of Monte Santiago: El salto del Río Nervión, a 300 meter high waterfall.

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Monte Santiago, the abrupt boundary between the Spanish plateau and the Basque lowlands.

During the Easter holiday we managed to escape for a few days, devoting our time to the detection of new orchid sites, exploring caves and visiting beautiful places. In this post I want to share some pictures of the Monte Santiago Natural Park, with its 300 meters high waterfall: “El salto del Río Nervión”. This blog is also dedicated to natural spaces located in the immediate vicinity of the Cantabrian Mountains. 

The location of this park is quiet special, because it´s the only place where the Spanish highland (meseta) borders the coastal lowlands. Most of the northern meseta (with heights of 800 to 900 meters) is separated from the north coast by the Cantabrian Mountains (with altitudes of over 2000 meters). However, these mountains end some 30 kilometers west of Monte Santiago, so that in this park the meseta is directly adjacent to the lowland of Vizcaya (Basque Country). The border between both regions consists of a dizzying steep cliff of about 500 to 600 meters high and several tens of kilometers long: a spectacular sight enhanced in value by the presence of numerous vulture nests. The River Nervión collects its water on the meseta and streams towards the cliff where it flows over the edge and plunges down. However, this 300 meter high waterfall can only be admired during periods of heavy rain or melting snow. This is due to the karst nature of the plateau, where most of the surface water quickly disappears below ground into an enormous underlying cavesystem. Monte Santiago is covered with a beech forest which is fed by rain and mist coming from the sea. Also there are the ruins of the medieval monastery of Santiago de Langrériz, which gives its name to this natural park.  

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In the footprints of the Roman legions.

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  Walking in the Cantabrian Mountains: Fuentes de Peñacorada.

General introduction.
This post will give a description of an easy and beautiful marked route near the southern border of the Central Cantabrian Mountains. The importance of the route lies both within the spectacular landscape and the cultural heritance.

This route is called "La Huella de las Legiones", which means literally "The footprint of the Legions". The designers of the route are completely convinced that we are dealing with a Roman way, which was constructed during the Cantabrian Wars (29-19 BC) to reach the local Celtic settlements called "castros".
Those "castros" were invariably built in inaccessible places, very difficult to conquer. The general idea is that the Romans built some main ways following the mayor river valleys and many smaller sideways which led from a main way towards the Celtic settlements in the mountains. In this case, our route is interpreted as a sideway of the main way along the river Esla (generally recognised as a Roman way), which led to a castro situated at the Campurrial pass.

According to the historians Eutimio Martino and Siro Sanz, this way has all the same characteristics of some closeby and widely recognised Roman ways in other parts of the Cantabrian Mountains. Considering the fact that the region has been under roman control for more than 400 years, since the Cantabrian Wars till the beginning of the 5th century when the Suevi, the Vandals and the Alans entered Spain, it is not far fetched to imaging that they also constructed a network of roads in the Cantabrian Mountains. Because those ways were the "natural" connection between the villages, they have been maintained and repaired in the centuries since, which means that they are only partially original (in the meaning that not all the slabs of stone were literally laid down by the Romans). In medieval writings of before the year 1000 this way is already mentioned, which at least proves a minimum age of more than a millenium.

Other cultural aspects are the ruins of a medieval castle, "el castillo de Monteagudo" on top of a steep mountain and traces of a Celtic settlement.

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