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Route via the CIARGA and Serral air raid shelter, with vineyard landscape and riverside woodland.
We start the walk at the CIARGA, Interpretation Centre of Republican Aviation and Air Warfare, opposite the Serral farmhouse. We head south along the asphalt track. After passing through Mas Granell we turn right onto a path between vineyards that will take us to the village of Sardinyola. We cross the asphalt road, continue straight along Xaloc Street and turn onto the first street on the right (Llebeig Street). We follow it all the way until we find the beginning of a path between almond trees. After a few meters we see that it forks; we take the path on the left, which will take us straight down to the Cal Bruna stream. Once by the edge of the stream, we look to the left for a good place to cross to the other side. Once crossed, we continue upstream in the middle of a riverside forest where poplars, elms and plane trees predominate. About 150m away we see some large specimens of stone pine. We continue along the path that borders the stream and turns left until we reach the paved road to Cal Bruna. We take it to the right, crossing the bridge over the stream, and after about 250m we will find the Sardinyola path again. We cross it and continue until we find the turnoff on the right that will take us back to El Serral, the point where we started the route.
The Centre for Interpretation of Republican Aviation and Air Warfare is a museum related to aviation and the civil war that is located beside masia del Serral which had housed the republican airfield of els Monjos that was part of the Vesper de la Gloriosa (Hive of the Glorious).
Next to the centre there is the old air raid shelter, whose two entrances and three ventilation chimneys can be seen. The presence of this shelter is related to the existence of the airfield. It is about 10 m deep and has a capacity for about 120 peoples.
In the municipality of Santa Margarida i els Monjos, despite its rather intense industrial and commercial fabric, part of the traditional agricultural use of the land is preserved, being given over to vineyards. Around small villages, like Sardinyola, we can see large stretches of vineyards that provide us with a beautiful rural landscape.
Along torrent de la Bruixa (Witch’s stream), as it passes through Sardinyola, we can observe interesting riverside woodland with a great diversity of plant species. There are silver poplars (Populus alba), black poplars (Populus nigra), plane trees (Platanusxhispanica), elms (Ulmus minor) and holm-oaks (Quercus ilex) where the undergrowth has a predominance of climbers like ivy (Hedera helix), sarsaparilla (Smilax aspera) or thornless blackberry (Rubus ulmifolius).
Beside the stream are the sources of Hort del Casas and that of Sardinyola, currently difficult to locate under the extensive reed bed that occupies the riverside.
Rivers and streams play a fundamental role in terms of the conservation of the biodiversity of the area, either due to their function as a reservoir of fauna and flora, or due to their role as biological corridors that minimize the fragmentation and isolation of natural habitats.