Guided Mushroom Walk in the Montseny: "Els bolets amb uns altres ulls

What it is and who leads it

This is the series of mushroom walks in the guided-walks programme of the Montseny Natural Park, which is managed by the Diputació de Barcelona. It is led by the environmental education company Aprèn, Serveis Ambientals, with an office in Figaró-Montmany. It is called "Els bolets amb uns altres ulls", mushrooms with different eyes, and that is exactly what it is: a walk of about four hours to recognise the most curious mushrooms, get to know the commonest ones and learn to identify the important species of each forest.

Each Sunday the starting point and the type of forest change. In 2026 they were Collformic, among beech woods and meadows, on 4 October, and El Brull, through oak woods and mountain pinewoods, on 25 October. Two remain: Aiguafreda, through pinewoods and holm oak woods, on 15 November, setting off from Sant Martí de Centelles railway station with a 5 km route; and La Garriga, through Mediterranean holm oak woods and pinewoods, on 29 November, from the visitor centre and covering 4 km. Both run from 10:00 to 14:00. The park publishes its programme of guided walks every year on the Xarxa de Parcs Naturals website.

Price, registration and what to bring

It costs €4 for adults and €3 for children aged 6 to 12, large and single-parent families, over-65s and volunteers of the parks network. Children under 6 do not pay. Registration is compulsory and is done with Aprèn on 938 429 361 or at [email protected]. Places are limited, given on a first-come basis, and the walk is cancelled if the weather does not allow it to be done properly. The park only asks for comfortable walking shoes and a bottle of water. The two remaining walks can both be reached by train: the Rodalies R3 stops at Sant Martí de Centelles and at La Garriga.

The rules for picking mushrooms in the Montseny

The walk is for learning to look, not for filling the basket. If you want to pick something, ask the guide first, and do not eat any mushroom that an expert has not checked one by one: in these woods there are toxic species very similar to the good ones. In Catalonia mushrooms are a resource belonging to the owner of the forest, and in the Montseny there are many private estates: where an estate shows with signs that picking is forbidden, nothing is picked. The Diputació's parks network does not set a limit in kilos in its recommendations; the Generalitat asks that you pick only species you know and in an amount to eat, that you do not pull up or break those you do not know, that you do not turn over the soil with sticks or rakes and that you use a basket that lets the mushrooms breathe. Chestnuts, by contrast, may only be picked with the permission of the owner of the trees.