Rosal de las Escuelas – Guarromán River – Trassierra Trail – PR-A 342

The Rosal de las Escuelas – Guarromán River – Trassierra Trail – PR-A 342 brings us onto some of the best preserved dehesas in the mountains, along a series of public trails. This route coincides with the GR - 48 - Sierra Morena Grand Trail and, for most of it, with the PR-A 211 from El Pozo de Las Cruces to Barriada de Santa María de Trassierra. We will also find small signs at the edge of the trails that indicate that we are walking along a cattle path.

We will begin our route at the Los Almendros Bar, along a trail that crosses lands belonging to El Hornillo for the first few metres. These first steps of the route are flanked by large prickly pear bushes, which are full of prickly pears in late summer. After 800 metres, we enter a dehesa with spectacular cork trees and a relatively high concentration of trees and abundant areas of Mediterranean scrub.

650 metres into this cork forest, we reach the La Marquesa spring, whose waters come from the Valdepuentes aqueduct, of Roman origin, which carried water from the Fuente del Elefante and the Bejarano River to Cordoba. Later, it was used to supply water to the city of Medina Azahara. From this point, the path slopes gently down between shrubs of laurestine, strawberry trees, mastic, and false olive, until —about 1200 m later— it comes to the Guarromán River, which is completely concealed by vegetation.

The path runs parallel to this river until we get close to a reservoir, in the grounds of La Jarosa estate. On the La Jarosa estate, the landscape is formed by a holm oak dehesa with some cork trees– it is ideal for cattle and pigs. The dehesa is a kind of vegetation created by man clearing layers of trees and shrubs to allow the herbaceous layer to flourish. A well-conserved dehesa is a fine example of how conservation can be compatible with economic exploitation.

Walking about 2.5 km through the La Jarosa estate, we reach the Pozo de Las Cruces, a flat area with no trees crossed by various public paths and lanes; we turn north towards Santa María de Trassierra along the Vereda de La Canchuela, which enters a cork dehesa, which is replaced 700 metres on by dense, shady scrub.

The last 2 km of our route leads us through the Urbanización El Salado to the centre of the Barriada de Santa María de Trassierra.