Cabarceno Nature Park

Cabarceno occupies about seven hundred and fifty hectares of ground mined for iron ore since Roman times and worked industrially until 1989, which left a landscape of red earth, pinnacles of eroded limestone karst and flooded pits. Rather than restoring it, Cantabria turned it into a wildlife park in 1990, with around a hundred and twenty species in enclosures that run to dozens of hectares each, far larger than a conventional zoo, so animals including elephants, gorillas, bears, bison, rhinos and big cats are seen at distance across open ground. A road of twenty kilometres runs through it and visitors drive between areas, with a cable car crossing the park. The elephant group has bred successfully and is one of the larger in Europe.

What you actually see

• The mine landscape - red earth and limestone pinnacles left by iron working.
• The large enclosures - areas of dozens of hectares per species group.
• The elephant herd - one of the larger breeding groups in Europe.
• The cable car - a crossing giving an aerial view of the park.

When to go

April to June and September to October; animals are most active in cool weather and the park is exposed. Summer weekends bring heavy traffic on the internal road. Winter hours are shorter.

Honest expectations

The park is driven rather than walked, and the internal road queues in season. Enclosures are large, so animals are often distant and sometimes not visible at all. The mining landscape is striking but bleak in poor weather.

Nearby

Santander lies seventeen kilometres north; the Cantabrian coast and Santillana are west.