Andalusia 2020

Saturday7November

After leaving Seville, we go down south into the natural reserve of Doñana National Park.
"Doñana National Park is the largest protected natural site in Europe. Created in 1969, two endangered species live there, the Iberian lynx and the Spanish imperial eagle" © Wikipedia
Suffice to say we saw neither one nor the other!  

The reserve is developed with different paths leading to observation huts. Left photo, pine nut picking?  

On the left, a male European stonechat (Saxicola rubicola). On the right, a female European stonechat.

And again a male European stonechat.

An observation hut. Not much to get our teeth into... The Moon, at least, does not need to be asked to show half of its face...

Mammal observatory... which are obviously all on day off today!  

Oh no! But not where we were supposed to see it since we are in the parking lot... It is a red deer (Cervus elaphus).

The road crossing the reserve passes through the village El Rocio, but we will come back to it in a little more detail later...

New exploration site of Doñana, starting at the Rocina visitor center.

The forest is mostly composed of stone pines (Pinus pinea).

Wow, a gray heron (Ardea cinerea)! We are making progress!

Here we are back in the village of El Rocio bordering the park marshes where horses and egrets enjoy the green pasture.

The village is mainly frequented by pilgrims who come to celebrate the statuette "Nuestra Señora del Rocío".

This miraculous statuette would have been found here in the 16th century at a time when the area was deserted. The discoverer of the object took it with him and the following night woke up noticing the absence of his find... Who knows why, he returned to the place where he had discovered the statuette and found it there again! That was all it took to cry miracle and quickly a hermitage was built there, starting point of a pilgrimage that kept growing.

The village has remained authentic, it feels like Argentina with the wooden logs in front of the houses to tie up your horse.

Precisely, here comes one! Not sure that his ancestors who wandered here a few centuries ago had his class...

The nave of the sanctuary. It is here that, every Whit Monday, the statue is placed in front of a huge crowd that came to carry it on men's backs in a long procession through the streets of El Rocio. So I expected to see it here instead of the standard placed in the middle of the Altar but no statue... Maybe it is only exposed part of the year... I didn't manage to get the answer...  

Back in the vegetation of Doñana where a course will lead us to the "Palacio del Acebrón" palace.

Acebrón Palace. This former private residence which later became a hunting lodge, is now a small information center on the region and its history. But closed on this pandemic day...

The park seen from the lodge.

Here we are facing the Atlantic, in the village of Matalascañas located at the very end of the road crossing Doñana Park.

This huge block is not a rock but the upper part of the old watchtower dating from the 16th century!

This tower called "la Higuera" did not always have its feet in the water. At low tide, it was easy to access it and enjoy an advantageous viewpoint on ships approaching the coast.

The province of Huelva had 11 towers like this on its beaches.

It collapsed during the Lisbon earthquake on November 1, 1755. The epicenter was more than 300 kilometers from here in the Atlantic. The city of Lisbon in Portugal had been destroyed by the earthquake and the tsunami that followed...  

After this beautiful sunset, we take the car back to join our hotel booked a few hours before and located in Huelva, 40 minutes drive from here. We will not visit Huelva and will leave the next morning towards Sierra de Aracena, a natural park about a hundred kilometers north of the city.