Features
- High Difficulty
- 11 Km
Description of the Walk
The PR – CV 270 route starts in the car park of the Barranc de la Font park, where there is an information panel giving details of this and other official walks. The route through the town takes us along some of its oldest streets: La Vila, Joseph Hernandez I Mira, Mare de Deu de L’Orito, Vicent Cabrera and at the end of the calle Sant Fransec (St Francis’ street) we find the first sign post (post 1).
From here we go down a gentle slope until we cross the bed of the river Coscó to ascend (post 2) in the direction of St. Anthony´s Hermitage (la ermita de Sant Antoni). Once here we find ourselves at the crossroads of the CV- 800 road (post 3). We take the road to Torremanzas and after about 600m we turn left (post 4) onto a track, which we follow northwards. After about 1,500m (post 5) we cross the road again. After about 300m we bear left (post 6) to continue climbing until we reach the Costa Spring, where we can re-fill our water bottles with fresh un-chlorinated water. We continue climbing until we meet the road again at the Venta Teresa (Teresa Inn) (post 7).
Always climbing northwards, we find a new post (post 8) on the track which points us to the Bugaia district and the Racó farm. We walk around it for about 850 m, always climbing, until we reach the road again in the Carresqueta (1,020m high). We cross it and climb the wall with the help of a chain (post 11) .The views over the whole coastline are wonderful during this part of the walk.
The track, which eventually leads to the La Moña y los Puertos property (post 12), later turns right to the summit of the Carresqueta which we cross (post 13) and following the signpost to the hotel Pou del Surdo (a perfectly preserved well where in old times ice was made). About 1,000m further on we should take a path to the right (post 14) until we reach a path on the left (post 15) which finishes at the hotel. (There is an information panel and a signpost). From here the track continues towards a large transmitter and further on a path to the right will take us upwards until we find the last post signalling this route (post 16) which indicates the connection with the PR-CV 232 route and the path which will take us to the Els Plans range and the Jijona hamlet La Sarga with its cave paintings.
You can also start this route by taking your car to the public car park at the end of the calle Sant Fransesc. (St Francis’ Street).
Information of interest
Flora and fauna
The vegetation of this area is very homogenous, consisting mainly of Aleppo pine woods, which, although they are the products of re-forestation initiatives, are now very naturalised. You also find small holly oak woods. The bushes around the pine woods are those naturally heat-loving Mediterranean species such as kermes oak, juniper, arcadia juniper lentiscus, turpentine or cornicabra tree and European fan palm.
The species plants of the region are those typically found in places where the line of Holly oak recedes and are comprised of plants of the leguminous, cistacae and aromatic labitiatae families such as gorse, blue broom, esparto grass, rock rose, pale stone crop, thyme, sage, ironwort and rosemary.
As far as fauna is concerned we can find such mammals as foxes, badgers, common genets, wild boars, rabbits, hares, Barbary sheep, (an ungulate introduced from north Africa for the purposes of hunting), and mouflon (a type of wild sheep). As for amphibians and reptiles, we note the presence of the common green frog, toads, the Iberian Wall Lizard , the rock lizard, the ocellated lizard, Lataste’s viper, ladder snakes and the Montpellier snake.
The bird life comprises such species as Common Wood Pigeons, Turtle Doves, Golden Eagles, the Short-toed Snake Eagle, Horned owls, Little Owls, falcons, Common Kestrels, crows, jackdaws, Red-Legged Partridges, and a great variety of insect-eating birds.