This is the route of the Cabezos Park, a linear path of just three kilometers that runs through one of the geological and natural treasures of Islantilla, the community and well-known tourist center of Huelva that make up the municipalities of Cristina Island and Lepe right on the Costa de la Luz.
Cabezos Park, a thousand-year-old cliff in Islantilla
We remind you that blue trails must meet very specific criteria to be considered as such (although from 2022 they are no longer required to be associated with a beach or port with a Blue Flag), so if you are thinking of those kilometer-long trails of lush nature away from the hustle and bustle of the world, the Parque de los Cabezos is not what you are looking for.
The surroundings of the trail are littered with urbanizations, swimming pools and even a golf course: this is Islantilla, let’s not forget. But that’s why it’s considered a blue trail, because in a tourist environment and close to a revered beach, we can follow a well-informed, signposted public route suitable for all types of hikers that highlights an element of the local natural and/or cultural heritage.
Specifically, the Parque de los Cabezos is a thousand-year-old cliff formed by gravel and sandstone where hundreds of years ago the waves of the sea broke, forming this sort of step on the coast. In its surroundings, we also have an example of Mediterranean forest which has survived the human transformation of the surroundings, which has not been small, as we know.
Among the flora that you will see along the route you will find cork oaks, pines, rosemary, lavender, rockroses, etc. while hedgehogs, rabbits, hoopoes, long-tailed magpies and the emblematic chameleon peek out from the nature.
Touring the Cabezos Park
To start the trail you must go to the stairs that give access to the westernmost wooden bridge that you will find in the Riofrío Avenue before reaching the West Walkone of the accesses to Islantilla beach.
This bridge that crosses the A-5054 The route that connects Islantilla, La Antilla and Isla Cristina takes us into the Mediterranean forest that will accompany us for a good part of the route. These are stone pines, maritime pines and resin pines introduced to this enclave to cover the great demand for wood by the shipbuilding industry that would have great boom in the first half of the 20th century in the area.
Next to them, typically Mediterranean scrub vegetation among which you will see (and smell) rosemary, mastic, gorse and sticky rockrose whose bush is also used to extract labdanum, which fixes odors in perfumes.
Continuing to walk eastwards, we will soon reach the second bridge, another access that the route has from Avenida de Riofrío. By the way, five minutes from this point, to the south, on Avenida de Islantilla, is the Islantilla Tourist Office.
We have already crossed the Golf Walk and we reach the middle of the path where the forest is giving way to the cliff… and to the golf course that gives its name to the walk and extends along the northern part of the path.
This is one of the best golf courses in Huelva: it was opened in 1992, being recognized by the magazine Golf Digest as one of the 100 best golf courses in Europehaving been the only one in Huelva to celebrate a European Circuit event back in 1995. It has 27 holes divided into three golf circuits of varying difficulty. So, if during the trail you feel like taking the puttYou know this golf course is first class.
But we have come to walk and we continue crossing the The Vera Walk which connects with the Paseo de Levante that leads to the beach. Here we find the third wooden walkway that from Riofrío Avenue brings us closer to the path, in a section that is already advanced in this case.
But this is the most suggestive area of the Cabezos Park where we find the artificial pond: Here we can stop to observe the folds of this quaternary geological formation that offer us a rich color palette ranging from yellow to copper red, with striated and rough reliefs dominating.
Leaving the pond behind (and the eastern end of the golf course) we approach the end of the route of the Parque de los Cabezos: at the confluence of the Las Cumbres Avenue and Avenida del Deporte culminates this blue path that, of course, can also be done in reverse: a panel gives us information about this route at this point on Avenida de Las Cumbres that also indicates that The use of bicycles is not permitted in it: only pedestrians.
By the way, this trail has recently been supplemented with a route also recognized as a blue trail that connects the neighboring Cristina Island with Islantilla itself: it is the Chameleon Route…which we leave for the next occasion.
