Fageda d'en Jordà

The Fageda d'en Jordà – in English, the Jordà Beech Forest – is a natural reserve[1] that includes a beech forest with unique characteristics in Catalonia and Spain, as it grows on relatively flat terrain, formed by a cooled lava flow from the volcano del Croscat, at an altitude that is not common in the Mediterranean area of the Iberian Peninsula for this type of forest, between 550 and 650 m. It has an area of about 4.8 km2 and its floor is made up of spatter cones (locally called tossols) that can reach more than 20 m in height.

[2] The beech forest is famous because the Catalan poet Joan Maragall wrote a well-known poem about it: La fageda d'en Jordà.

There is a monolith in the poet's honour at the main entrance to the beech forest, at kilometer 4 of the road from Olot to Santa Pau, at the Can Serra car park.

The use of motor vehicles is prohibited within the forest, however, there are several walking routes and you can rent a horse or an old horse-drawn carriage at kilometer 7 of the road from Olot to Santa Pau.

The beech (Fagus sylvatica) trees benefit from a generous climate, abundant in rain (900 to 1000 mm), cool, with a Mediterranean transition from humid mountain to Atlantic coast, facing slightly north, with a substrate of relatively recent reddish clays, andosols and other brown soils in which these trees grow easily.

One of the tossols (volcanic spatter cones) in the Fageda d'en Jordà, Garrotxa