Environment

La Casa Alkaras is situated in a small village which is named El Cerezo (a cerezo is a cherry tree, alkaras in Arabic), above 1.400 meters the sea level. Furthermore the village is in the Nature Reserve of Cazorla, Segura y Las Villas. El Cerezo belongs to Santiago-Pontones, a municipality in the province of Jaen (Andalusia).

The Nature Reserve of Cazorla, Segura y las Villas is the biggest protected environment in Spain and one of the biggest in Europe. It has 214.336 hectares, to get an idea, is bigger than London city.

The forest and botanical endemism that we can see at the Reserve, provide it of a high ecological and landscape value.

At the foot of the Almorchón mountain (1.914meters) there is fertile lowland with villages like El Cerezo. There are orchards and market gardens very fertile thanks to in that region born the Muso river and the Fuente del Berral. In these villages they keep the life as in ancient times and nowadays is still possible to see the shepherds with their herds.

The region is 13 km long, begins at Santiago de la Espada and ends at Aldea de Don Domingo where begin lot of mountains hiking routes among Los Campos de Hernán Perea.