Doñana National Park

Overview

Doñana is a 54,252 hectare national park at the mouth of the Guadalquivir, spread across the provinces of Huelva and Sevilla in south-west Spain. Three systems sit side by side inside it: the marisma, a seasonal marsh that floods and dries again each year; a belt of mobile dunes along the Atlantic front; and the sandy cotos of pine and scrub behind them. It is the best known refuge of the Iberian lynx and the Spanish imperial eagle, the two animals the park exists to protect.

Access splits in two, and the split is what catches people out. The visitor centres and their footpaths are free, as is walking the 33 kilometres of park beach between Sanlúcar de Barrameda and Matalascañas and the Raya Real and Camino de Moguer drove roads out of El Rocío. Everything else, the marsh, the dunes and the pine cotos where the lynx live, is reached only on one of three guided itineraries run by concession holders under the park’s control: two overland in four wheel drives, one on the river.

Most visitors assume spring is the moment. The park administration recommends autumn and winter instead: fewer people, easier temperatures, wintering birds in place. Up to 200,000 waterfowl use the flooded marsh over the winter.

Visiting

Five visitor centres ring the park, none charging admission, each with its own footpaths and hides. They are the only parts of Doñana you can turn up at.

El Acebuche

The place to start if you have never been. It sits off the A-483 at roughly km 38.7, a turning about 3 km from Matalascañas, with a 2 km access track. Inside: reception, an exhibition on the park, an audiovisual room, a cafeteria, a shop and a picnic area. Outside: the Laguna del Acebuche footpath, the Lagunas del Huerto y las Pajas footpath and an Iberian lynx observatory. It is also the booking point for the southern four wheel drive itinerary.

La Rocina and Palacio del Acebrón

La Rocina stands on the A-483 at km 27.5, a kilometre from El Rocío and walkable from the village. It holds an audiovisual room, a choza with an exhibition on the Romería del Rocío, and the Charco de la Boca footpath. From its car park a surfaced track runs 6 km to the Palacio del Acebrón, which you can reach on foot, by bike or by car; there is an ethnographic exhibition inside and the Charco del Acebrón footpath outside.

The fifth centre, Fábrica de Hielo, is a converted fishermen’s guild and ice factory in the Bajo de Guía quarter of Sanlúcar de Barrameda. It has an exhibition, a shop, a terrace viewpoint over the water, and the ticket desk for the river itinerary. It opens 09:00 to 18:00 from 15 December through January, 09:00 to 19:00 in February and March, and 09:00 to 20:00 from April to September; the official listing gives no hours for October to mid-December, so phone before making the drive.

Into the interior

Three official itineraries exist, all worked by companies holding a park concession or authorisation, all with guides working in Spanish and English.

The southern route, El Acebuche to La Plancha and back, is the concession of the Sociedad Cooperativa Andaluza Marismas del Rocío. It leaves El Acebuche at 08:30 and 17:00 from 1 May to 14 September, and at 08:30 and 15:00 from 15 September to 30 April, runs three and a half to four hours, and crosses dunes, coto, marsh, woodland and beach, stopping at the dunes and the old Poblado de la Plancha. Adults pay €35, ages 4 to 8 pay €20 and under-4s go free.

The river itinerary from Sanlúcar is the concession of Cristóbal Anillo S.L. and runs on the Real Fernando or the Los Cristóbal. You meet inside the Fábrica de Hielo half an hour before departure, sail about 6 km upriver, land at the Poblado de la Plancha for roughly an hour on foot past the pine wood, the chozas and the llanos de Velázquez, then sail back, two and a half to three hours in all depending on tide and current. Adults pay €30, over-65s, students and visitors with a disability pay €25, ages 5 to 12 pay €20 and under-5s go free.

The northern route, Coto del Rey to the José Antonio Valverde centre, is shared by six companies under administrative authorisation, and the park tells you to phone ahead for places. Spain’s official tourism site points bookings for the park at donanareservas.com.

History

People have been in this corner of the Guadalquivir for around 28,000 years, and the marshes carried settlement from roughly 3000 BC until a tsunami destroyed it around 2000 BC. Between about 200 BC and 500 AD Roman fish-salting works operated here, with remains at Cerro del Trigo.

The land became a hunting ground after the conquest of Seville in 1248, when Alfonso X el Sabio turned it into a royal preserve. Formal demarcation followed in the 15th century under noble jurisdiction, with rules written to protect the game rather than the habitat. By the 18th century three uses ran side by side: forestry, grazing and organised hunting, and scientific attention arrived only after ornithological publications from 1819 onwards.

In the early 20th century the Medina Sidonia family sold the estate to Guillermo Garvey, a wine merchant from Jerez de la Frontera. His heirs introduced animal species and planted pines, and in 1940 set up the Sociedad Cinegética del Coto del Palacio de Doñana. International ornithologists proposed protection in 1952. In 1963 Spain bought roughly 7,000 hectares in partnership with the World Wildlife Fund and set up the Biological Reserve, and the national park itself followed under a decree of 16 October 1969.

The threats since have come from outside the boundary. On 25 April 1998 a tailings dam at the Los Frailes mine near Aznalcóllar failed, releasing four to five million cubic metres of mine waste into the Agrio and then the Guadiamar; the clean-up cost about €240 million over three years. The slower argument is about water. The surrounding countryside grows over 90% of the Spanish strawberry crop, and the Court of Justice of the European Union has ruled that Spain breached conservation rules over illegal extraction from the aquifer that feeds the marsh. That dispute is still live, and the marsh you see may be far shallower than the photographs suggest.

Getting there

By car

Doñana has no single entrance, so pick the visitor centre first and navigate to that. From Seville, take the A-49 towards Huelva, leave at the Bollullos Par del Condado and La Palma exit, then follow the A-483 through Almonte to El Rocío and Matalascañas. The alternative is the Hinojos and Chucena exit, the A-481 to Hinojos and the A-484 to Almonte, joining the same A-483. From Huelva, the A-494 runs to Matalascañas, where the A-483 turns inland to El Rocío.

For the river trip you want Sanlúcar de Barrameda instead, on the far bank in Cádiz province. The A-471 comes in from Lebrija and the A-480 from Jerez de la Frontera.

By bus

Buses reach El Rocío, and from the village you can walk to the La Rocina centre. Sanlúcar de Barrameda, and therefore the Fábrica de Hielo centre and the boat, has public transport from both Seville and Cádiz. The park lists Damas S.A. on 959 256900 as the operator connecting to the visitor centres, and Los Amarillos on 902 210317 for the Sanlúcar side.

By bike and on foot

Most of the visitor centres sit close enough to a town to make cycling a workable alternative to driving. The exception is José Antonio Valverde, roughly 25 km each way from Villamanrique de la Condesa, La Puebla del Río or Isla Mayor over the same unsurfaced tracks the cars use. On foot, the beach between Sanlúcar de Barrameda and Matalascañas is open along its full length, as are the Raya Real and Camino de Moguer from El Rocío.

Local information

Tourist offices sit at El Rocío (959 026 602), Matalascañas at the Parque Dunar (959 430 086) and Sanlúcar de Barrameda (956 366 110). The park’s own office is at El Acebuche, on 959 439 627.

Tips

• Reserve a place on any guided itinerary before you travel. The park limits numbers on all three routes and says so plainly in its own visitor advice.

• Bring binoculars. The park calls them all but essential for watching wildlife here.

• Check the rest days before you commit to a date. The southern four wheel drive route does not run on 25 December or 1 January, on Mondays from 1 October to 28 February, on Sundays from 1 June to 30 September, or during the Romería del Rocío.

• Skip the four wheel drive if you are pregnant or have neck or back problems. The operator advises against it because of the terrain, and the vehicles carry no child restraint systems.

• Pack insect repellent, water and comfortable closed shoes. Both concession holders list the same three items, which tells you something about the mosquitoes.

• Travel light for the boat. Pets, large bags, suitcases and umbrellas are refused, and unaccompanied minors are not carried.

• Wheelchair users can use every visitor centre. All five are adapted to reduce physical, intellectual and language barriers, the footpaths run on wooden boardwalks, and the observatories have wheelchair adaptations. Some centres stock leaflets and maps translated into Braille by the ONCE.

• Arrive at the Fábrica de Hielo half an hour before your boat leaves. The meeting point is inside the building, not on the quay.

• Avoid the dates of the Romería del Rocío unless the pilgrimage is what you came for. The visitor centres close for it, the four wheel drive route stops, and the boat from Sanlúcar stops too.