Logbook · 4 places

What to see and do in Carrizo

What to see and do in Carrizo (Astorga, León): 4 places across monuments, nature, activities and curiosities, with a photo and a Google Maps location.

1 Villages · 1 Monuments · 1 Nature · 1 Historical milestones

How far each place is from the centre of Carrizo

Monastery of Santa María de Carrizo 150 m

Towns near Carrizo

Spain › Castile and León › León › Astorga › Carrizo

What to see and do in Carrizo

Carrizo
Village
Carrizo (officially Carrizo de la Ribera) is a León municipality in the Ribera del Órbigo, beside the river of the same name, with around 2,240 inhabitants spread between Carrizo itself, Huerga del Río, La Milla del Río, Quiñones del Río and Villanueva de Carrizo. Its origin goes back to Celtic times, with remains of Roman villas, but its development came with the monastery of Santa María de Carrizo, founded in 1176 by Estefanía Ramírez, around which the village formed with people from El Villar de las Ollas. The monastery governed local life until its nuns left the cloister in 1868; today the town produces almost all Spanish hops, a crop that took root there in the 1950s. At Pentecost it climbs up to the pilgrimage of El Villar.
Monastery of Santa María de Carrizo
Monument
The monastery of Santa María de Carrizo, in the León town of Carrizo de la Ribera, is a still-inhabited community of Cistercian nuns, listed as a monumento histórico-artístico (a former Spanish heritage designation, today Bien de Interés Cultural) in 1974; the listing covers the enclosing walls, the entrance arch, the cloister and the monastic church, around which the village itself grew up. It was founded in 1176 by Countess Estefanía Ramírez, widow of Count Ponce de Minerva, who retired there to lead the first community; on her death in 1183 she was succeeded by her own daughter as the first abbess. It stood empty only once in eight hundred years: between 1868 and 1871, when the government forced the nine nuns to leave the cloister. In 1955 the community adopted the Strict Observance, and today it is dependent on the Cistercian abbey of Santa María de Viaceli.
Carrizo floodplain and the Órbigo riverside woods
Nature
An irrigated plain on the bank of the Órbigo which shares its land between Huerga del Río, La Milla del Río, Quiñones del Río and Villanueva de Carrizo. Riverside poplar groves and hop fields dominate the farmed landscape of the valley.
Founding of the monastery of Carrizo
Historical milestone
Countess Estefanía Ramírez, widow of Ponce de Minerva, gave the Cistercians the places of Carrizo and Grulleros and other estates for her husband's soul. She led the first community without taking vows until her death in 1183.