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Cabañeros National Park
ES
Cabañeros
The Boquerón del Estena between quartzite towers

Trails

Camino del Acebo y las Fuentes

A flat walk beside the Estena river, from spring to spring, for children or when you are short of time.

Cover photo: the Boquerón del Estena, by Juan Manuel González Morales, CC BY-SA 3.0 es.

This is the quietest walk at Navas de Estena and a good way to see the river without tiring yourself. It starts at the Tabla del Acebo recreation area, two kilometres from the village, and follows the Estena bank with almost no climb up to a spring with three spouts. If you start on foot from the village, it grows to about three hours.

Practical information

Practical information

Self-guided
Booking
Not needed.
Start and parking
The village of Navas de Estena or the car park of the Tabla del Acebo recreation area, 2 km from the village.
Duration
1 h 15 min there and back from the car park (3 h from the village)
Length
3 km there and back from the car park (7 km from the village)
Climb
10 m
Difficulty
Low
Water
It passes two springs with unchlorinated water, the Fuente Fría and the Fuente de las Chinas.
Also
Accessible for people with reduced mobility.
Bear in mind
Only the first half kilometre, the wooden boardwalk, is accessible for wheelchairs.

For seeing wildlife, the first and last hours of daylight are the best, according to the park. Official data: park information (MITECO, 2025, in Spanish).

The route

The first half kilometre is a wooden walkway running right beside the river, which wheelchairs can use. A few metres on there is a small viewpoint directly opposite the Boquerón del Estena, the gorge where the river cuts through the mountains; from there you can also see the hill of the hermitage on the left and the Sierra de Fuentefría on the right.

At the end of the walkway an old farmhouse appears next to some vegetable plots. The path crosses the river by a bridge and enters, now wide, a wood of holm oaks, Portuguese oaks and Pyrenean oaks that opens up here and there into pedrizas, those slopes of loose stone so typical of these hills.

On the left is the Fuente Fría, where people from Navas still come to fill bottles because the water is not chlorinated. A little further on, past some fine Pyrenean oaks, the path divides: the right branch goes down to the riverbank and the left one, with a very gentle climb, reaches the end, the Fuente de las Chinas. It is a spring with three spouts surrounded by quartzites, some with trilobite tracks from when all this was seabed. Next to it there is a peat bog, a permanently waterlogged and very fragile soil where plants adapted to a lack of nitrogen grow. You return the same way.

What to see along the way

Getting there

The Tabla del Acebo recreation area is 2 km from Navas de Estena, the village of the Boquerón del Estena. If you come from Horcajo de los Montes or Retuerta del Bullaque, see the village page. The longer Boquerón del Estena route starts from the same area and combines well with this one.

Other trails in Cabañeros

Bibliography