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Great Malaga Path (GR 249). Alternative Route 5. Stage 2. Teba - Cañete la Real

Diputación de Málaga
GR 249.5. Section Stage 2. Teba - Cañete la Real. Teba Castle

Great Malaga Path (GR 249). Alternative Route 5. Stage 2. Teba - Cañete la Real

Route On foot
Difficulty - Blue -Easy
Access -

1 The Beginning of the Stage: Teba.

2 The End of the Stage: Cañete la Real

Connection with other paths and livestock tracks:

This Alternative Route links with SL-A 274 Cerro de Sabora Hill, link up at the end of the Stage and PR-A 419, Las Carboneras.

Hazards:

• Road traffic circulating towards the end
• Crossing a level crossing without barriers

Duration - 4:00 horas
Length - 12500 Km
Routes

The plains of El Castillo and La Estrella (Up to km 5.2)

The stage starts by going 200 metres down the road that enters Teba from the west, the MA-6403. It soon turns off onto the old road around a large building on the left, and follows a series of hairpin bends with views of the village of Almargen, and the Sierra del Terril behind it. The steel cables of the Via Ferrata pass over the pathway and along the valley’s steep rockface. Then take the shortcut through an open field and after about 500 metres, you reach the entrance to the industrial estate in the area known as Llano de la Estación (the Station Plains).

You now join the A-7278 road at kilometre 5, until the signposts direct you onto the Teba to Cañete la Real road (at its 1.4 kilometre mark), which is tarmacked and belongs to the Environment Department. Follow this road for a little over a kilometre, and then take the track that heads slightly uphill towards El Tajo country estate. This can be seen at the foot of a reddish-coloured outcrop at the top of the distant hill.

Make a sharp turn at El Pilarejo Spring, which was used by the ancient Roman city of Teba and has been declared a Cultural Heritage Site. This is found in a fallow field to the right of the path, on the other side of the Olive grove with Almond trees. Come back onto the road and walk along its hard shoulder for another kilometre. The difficult-to-spot El Álamo fountain on the left, signals a turn-off towards the south-west into a field. Depending on the time of year, you will cross fields of wheat, chickpea or stubble, before fording the stream. Its channel is deeply set in the clay and is named after the fountain. Then begins a slight climb up to some large piles of gathered stones at the bottom of a small valley.

The gypsum lands of Cara de Zorra (Up to km 9.1)

You have now reached the Camino de Cara Zorra (Fox’s Face Way), and it is here that the ground changes from agricultural soils to a raised rocky area. You can still make out the abandoned fields of Olive and Almond trees, where the natural vegetation is beginning to recover, mostly with White broom, Thyme, Asparagus, Esparto grass and some young Holm oaks. The path gradually becomes more track-like, reaching the summits while following the contours of the hills. If you look back here, you will see the village of Teba with its castle and that part of the route. Kilometre 6.5 is the stage’s approximate halfway point, near the ruins of the Cara de Zorra country estate.

Passing an abandoned farmhouse below on the right on the Terrona ridge, the track bends round past some beehives and on to some arable fields, belonging to La Haza del Duro. Its well-trodden tracks are funnelled into a single main one, and a few hundred metres on to the south, this is a possible access to the road that the route turned off at Fuente del Álamo. On the left is the spectacular country estate of Cortijo de Nina Baja, with a dry fountain on the right. You are then faced with a considerable slope up ahead. Some of the pathway is over concrete and on the right is a stream with Brambles and Fig trees. There is an old pond just at the crossroads, where a right (which you do not take) leads to a large farm shed. A short way on, you reach a large water storage unit, on the edge of farmland and next to the country estate of Nina Alta. In about 500 metres, you reach the water well which supplies this water storage unit, then bear left round the perimeter fence.

The peaks of the Sierra de Cañete (To the end of the stage)

The only stretch of footpath of the day begins here, where the Sierra meets a very long field on the right along the bottom of the valley. The path crosses this a little further up, and then winds its way up until it joins a newer track.

As it climbs, it joins another pathway and becomes a more substantial track. Although a little tricky, it is possible to see a rocky escarpment near the summit and away from the path, with thick vegetation and some hollows in the rock. Here we find one of the historical sites of Cañete, the caves of El Hoyo Cruz, most likely to be of Mozarab origin and from the same era as the cave of El Santón, a similar distance away on the other side.

Coming to the pass of Las Canteras, which at almost 800m above sea level is the highest point on the route. It lies between the mountains of Milla and Mateo with their telecommunications masts atop. After a last look over to the east where the Stage began, the gravel track descends through scenery with the evocative name of Camino del Calvario (Cavalry Way). Up ahead is Cañete la Real, in the shadow of the peaks of Sierra del Padrastro, ever closer. The aggregate and limestone quarries after which the pass gets its name, can now be seen on both sides, covered by Holm oaks and scrubland.

You must now cross an outstanding example traditional Olive grove, with some outstanding individual trees. When you reach a concrete section of track, cereal fields cover the surrounding landscape. The stage comes to an end when you arrive at the road to Cañete once again, next to the spring and Fuente del Cuartel and in front of the village with its beautiful castle.

How to get there

Discover more about the province of Malaga

Discover more about the province of Malaga