TRANSLANA project
TAGUS region
ROUTES for the Region
 Route XI .- The Old Way of the Hermitage Municipal Area: Navas del Madroño 

The totality of the surface of Navas del Madroño is occupied by granitic soils that belong to the oriental edge of the batolito of Araya´s Head, which softly rises on the materials of the complex Esquisto Grauváquico, forming most of the wide penillanura cacereña. In addition, the region is crossed by the great fracture of the river Araya. This element will define the landscape that we will find in this route, the Old Way of the Hermitage, or also known as Way of the Rosemaries, that goes from the village up to the hermitage of Santo Domingo of Guzmán, its saint.

Taking the Major Square as starting point, the route goes towards the ribera of the Araya, in a landscape dominated by the granite and the sandy areas, where the vegetation is progressively disappearing, spreading the pastizales and the retamares in the riverbed of the Araya. We descend to the river following the creek of the Almendro through a new road. Later we will have to ascend -softly- up to the hermitage of Santo Domingo de Guzmán, placed in a wonderful frame, the Sierra of Santo Domingo. Though the route finishes here, the isolated place invites to explore nearby places as the Garden of the Bola, the creek of the Guirigay or the Sierra of Santo Domingo itself, rising up to the geodesic vertex of the Common Pasture.