Touristic Routes

342 METRES.

Lookout towers where you can get the best panoramic view of the Mar Menor. From the summit of La Fuente Hill you can see the whole morphology of a unique area.

Lenght: 3 kilometres.

Duration: climbing, 45 minutes.

Dificultad: easy.

Description of the route: Los Belones, opposite Bar Deportivo, take La Fuente avenue, which avoids the motorway and, after 1.300 metres of tarmacked road, it takes you to Las Barracas centre.

There you will find a crossroads where there is a tap pouring water from the fountain on the Hill (very popular in this area for its quality, some people travel all the way from Cartagena to take it home), and take the tarmacked road that goes left and slowly becomes a path.


A thousand metres further on the path ends and you must leave your vehicle. Just at that moment, next to the remains of an old service reservoir, you will see a clear path that goes up the side towards a densely vegetated Hill.

Follow it for about 45 minutes through a pine tree forest, which is quite an unusual sight around this area and is so tightly closed that one gets the feeling of being in a much more humid area. The view from the summit is unforgettable.

Recommendations: take some suitable shoes to go climbing, such as boots or trainers with hard soles.  Try not to go during the hottest hours of the day.

Interesting places: from the summit of the Hill you can see perfectly the convergence of morphological factors that created such a privileged place as the Mar Menor. Here you can see the volcanic spine that formed Cabo de Palos, the small islands in the lagoon and the narrow sand strip that closes the bay with the accumulation of sediments in the bed.

Opposite the lighthouse you will find the small Hormigas Islands, which are also provided with a luminous signal. Their beautiful beds have been declared a Marine Reserve. A little bit further up, La Manga looks like a city of Neptune emerged as if by magic from the calm waters.

In the south we can see the golden beaches of Calblanque amongst a beautiful Mediterranean sea full of blues and greens. To the north, the plain of Cartagena, which has been turned into an orchard of plants cultivated thanks to the interbasin water diversion. The golf course, with is surreal lawns, gives a humid touch to the yellowy landscape. The forest near the summit supported the inhabitants of these areas until recent years.

In Cobaticas, the population you can see at the bottom of the mountain totalled 40 families who lived off cattle (there were over 1000 sheep), the esparto harvest (some groups from Nerpio, in Albacete, came to help with collection) and especially off the wood collected using horses from this forest which was later on distributed in carts to Cartagena, La Unión and Murcia.