Logbook · 4 places

What to see and do in Santa Colomba de Somoza

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

1 Villages · 1 Monuments · 1 Curiosities · 1 Historical milestones

How far each place is from the centre of Santa Colomba de Somoza

Graphic Archive of the Pop Era 350 m

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Spain › Castile and León › León › Astorga › Santa Colomba de Somoza

What to see and do in Santa Colomba de Somoza

Santa Colomba de Somoza
Village
Santa Colomba de Somoza is a municipality in the historic Maragatería region, in the province of León, 16 kilometres from Astorga, crossed by the Turienzo river. It brings together nineteen villages, among them Rabanal del Camino and Foncebadón, with stone houses and cobbled courtyards, and has around 470 inhabitants in all. The Maragato muleteers, who carried salted goods from Galicia and returned with cured meats and dry-farmed produce, held great power here between the 16th and 19th centuries, until the railway reached Astorga in 1866. Today the municipality lives on tourism, drawn by its architecture, the cocido maragato dish and the passage of the Camino de Santiago, recognised by Unesco since 2015. Since 2024 it has housed the Archivo Gráfico de la Era Pop, a museum devoted to 1960s pop music.
Church of la Asunción de Rabanal del Camino
Monument
The parish church of the hamlet that closes the ninth stage of the Camino Francés according to the Codex Calixtinus, a place with pilgrim hospitals documented as early as 1103. It was declared a monument on 1 October 1982.
Graphic Archive of the Pop Era
Curiosity
The Graphic Archive of the Pop Era, popularly known as the Pop Museum, opened in 2024 in the former Casa de las Maestras in Santa Colomba de Somoza, in the heart of Maragatería and beside the Camino Francés. It is run by the Fundación Club 45, created by the musician Alejandro Díez Garín -Álex Cooper, former leader of the mod band Los Flechazos-, and brings together a collection built up over more than 35 years on 1960s pop music: vinyl records, magazines, sheet music, posters and objects such as a Rickenbacker 325 guitar, Vox amplifiers or a Lambretta motorcycle. The visit is arranged in three rooms -British Beat, Europe and Curiosities- focused above all on British beat music and mod subculture, and is completed with a study room, a space for concerts and workshops, and free admission.
Decline of the Maragato muleteers
Historical milestone
The arrival of the railway in Astorga, in the second half of the 19th century, marked the beginning of the end of a caste that between the 16th and 19th centuries carried salted fish from the Galician coasts inland and returned loaded with sausages and dry-farmed produce.