El Arenal: Nature, Trails and Cultural Heritage

El Arenal is located in the Sierra de Gredos Regional Park. The area has rugged terrain with significant differences in elevation.

Nature and Trails

The slopes around El Arenal include pine forests, fruit trees, streams and gorges with clear water. The Arenal and Zarzoso rivers feed El Arenal’s natural pools.

The Entre Ríos circular route begins in El Arenal at Plaza de los Sargentos Provisionales, next to the new Rollo jurisdiccional. It follows the banks of the Zarzoso and Río Arenal rivers and leads to the area’s characteristic natural pools. The PR-AV 20 Senda Ecológica trail offers views of Los Galayos as well as the valleys of El Arenal and El Hornillo. For day planning, the two trails can be compared as different formats.

When choosing a holiday apartment in El Arenal, you can weigh these priorities separately: nature and water, trails with different viewpoints, or local history and festival traditions.

Townscape and History

El Arenal has narrow, steep streets and a distinctive traditional vernacular architecture. The Barrio de los Balcones still features narrow, winding streets and houses with wooden balconies decorated with flowers. The Casa de la Inquisición has a stone arch topped by an Inquisition coat of arms.

El Rollo is a stone monument on the Plazoleta commemorating the Carta de Villazgo of El Arenal. La Cilla, or Casa de la Linda, was an ecclesiastical storehouse where the tithe—the tenth part of the produce—was collected from the residents of the town.

According to the local legend of the Cañón de El Arenal, during the 19th-century Carlist Wars, residents made a simple cannon from the hollowed-out trunk of a chestnut tree, reinforced in the local smithy, to defend the town against a possible armed invasion.

Culture and Religious Buildings

The Ermita del Santísimo Cristo de la Expiración houses a polychrome wooden sculpture of the Cristo de la Expiración dating from the 17th century. The new Ermita del Santísimo Cristo de la Expiración was built in the 1930s on the Carretera de Arenas so that it would be more accessible to the faithful and the Christ could be carried out during processions. The Jornadas del Cañón is an established cultural event in El Arenal.

Festivals and Local Cuisine

Las Majadas is a long-standing local festival in El Arenal and includes a pilgrimage in honor of the Divina Pastora. During the Las Majadas celebration, Patatas al pastor are served, a dish that originated in the cuisine of transhumant shepherds.

The Las Majadas landscape in El Arenal was an important section of the livestock routes through the southern foothills of the Sierra de Gredos for centuries. The Las Majadas celebration includes a traditional pilgrimage with the image of the Virgen de la Divina Pastora and a hike to the festival site taking place at the same time.

Other Places

Other places: Barajas, Cebreros, El Oso, Riocabado, Casas del Abad, San Bartolomé de Pinares, Gil-García, Riofrío

To the main travel overview: Avila.