Logbook · 3 places

What to see and do in Vega de Valcarce

What to see and do in Vega de Valcarce (El Bierzo, León): 3 places across monuments, nature, activities and curiosities, with a photo and a Google Maps location.

1 Villages · 1 Monuments · 1 Historical milestones

How far each place is from the centre of Vega de Valcarce

Castle of Sarracín 700 m

Towns near Vega de Valcarce

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What to see in Villafranca del Bierzo 13 km · 3 places
What to see in Oencia 13 km · 2 places
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What to see in Sobrado 18 km · 2 places

Spain › Castile and León › León › El Bierzo › Vega de Valcarce

What to see and do in Vega de Valcarce

Vega de Valcarce
Village
Vega de Valcarce is a Leonese municipality of about 555 inhabitants, situated at the western end of the province, bordering Galicia, where Galician is also spoken. Through its territory, the last in the province of León before entering Galicia, runs the Camino de Santiago, with two pilgrim hostels, across a mountainous relief crossed by the streams that feed the río Valcarce, which rises near the Piedrafita pass. The comarca preserves numerous pre-Roman Astur castros, and also, already from Roman times, the castro of Santalla, at Moñón. The municipality is watched over by the castle of Sarracín, raised in the 10th century on a possible earlier Astur castro and rebuilt in the 14th; it would correspond to the rebuilding of a castle razed in the year 714 by the Umayyad governor Muza.
Castle of Sarracín
Monument
A tower raised on the Castro Martín knoll, on the slope of the Vilela mountain —already mentioned in the Codex Calixtinus—, overlooking the whole Valcarce valley. Its origin is attributed to the 10th century and to Sarracino, son of Count Gatón, though most of what is seen today dates from the 14th century, under the Marquis of Villafranca. It was declared Bien de Interés Cultural (Spain's highest level of heritage protection) on 22 April 1949, and in 2015 it was included, under number 1911, in the inventory of associated elements that Spain submitted to Unesco for the extension of the Way of St James.
Stay of Charles I at the Sarracín castle
Historical milestone
The monarch spent the night in 1520 in the fortress of the valley on his way to La Coruña, where he had summoned the Cortes before sailing for Flanders. That same autumn he would be proclaimed emperor of the Holy Roman Empire.