Sierra Espuna
Sierra Espuna - Copyright David & Desiree - http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/desanddave/SierraEspunaNationalPark#
In May, we had elderly relatives on holiday with us and decided to try a day out to the Sierra Espuña National Park in Murcia.
The Sierra Espuña is a vast mountain range and National Park, with many walking trails, view points and places of interest to look at.
Our relatives were not up to too much walking, so we decided to have a drive around one particular area to soak up the environment we were in – fresh air, forests and view points.
First of all, after travelling along the A7 motorway past Murcia going towards Almeria / Granada, take exit 631 signposted to Alháma de Murcia & Pliego.
Drive into Alháma de Murcia and very soon there are some ‘brown tourist signs’ directing towards ‘Camping Espuña’. I followed these signs and found a road that leads to Moriana, followed by El Paleto and Huerta Espuña.
(Look at the map on the website I have listed below.)
As you may imagine, the roads are narrow-ish and wind their way around the countryside, passing many forests and beautiful scenery. There are specific viewpoints dotted around the area. After being on this road for about half hour, we came across and large Educational / Visitor Centre building, but be warned it only opens to the public on Tuesday and Wednesdays. (We went on a Monday, but I cheekily spoke some Spanish to a worker I found and managed to obtain some leaflets in English with information about the park.
We continued along to Casa Rosa, stopping regularly to look at all the different scenery, before retracing our steps to La Perdiz and winding our way around to El Berro before stopping at GEBAS.
I have to say at this point, that the Park is so vast you could do with quite a few days to explore it properly, but it is well worth a day visit and choose one area to explore.
At Gebas, we found Hotel La Mariposa, an English owned and run hotel, restaurant and bar. We all had a 9€ Menu Del Dia, which I can only say was the best English cooked food I have tasted in Spain from such an establishment.
There was a blackboard with 4 starters to choose from, 4 main courses and a variety of desserts, the price included a plate of salad on the table and coffee. Alcoholic or soft drinks were extra.
The staff were very friendly and the service was excellent.
The Hotel did have various offers on display and I will be re-visiting this place again in the future.
All in all, this is a really nice place to explore.
Below is a good website I discovered for this area.
http://www.sierraespuna.com/index.asp?idioma=2
I have put a small selection of photos on the following link to give you an idea of what we saw.
http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/desanddave/SierraEspunaNationalPark#
