Logbook · 7 places

What to see and do in Santa María del Páramo

What to see and do in Santa María del Páramo (El Páramo, León): 7 places across monuments, nature, activities and curiosities, with a photo and a Google Maps location.

1 Villages · 1 Monuments · 1 Nature · 1 Activities · 2 Curiosities · 1 Food and drink

Towns near Santa María del Páramo

Spain › Castile and León › León › El Páramo › Santa María del Páramo

What to see and do in Santa María del Páramo

Santa María del Páramo
Village
Santa María del Páramo is the capital of the Páramo Leonés, on the interfluve between the valleys of the Órbigo and Esla rivers, with an average altitude of 808 metres and a little under 3,000 inhabitants. Its name joins the Marian invocation to the pre-Roman word páramo, which designated a flat plain exposed to the wind, neither cultivated nor inhabited; today the municipality, with clay-silt and sandy soils, is crossed only by the Huerga stream and has been irrigated since the 1960s by the Matalobos, Urdiales and Santa María canals, built after the Barrios de Luna reservoir. It preserves its multi-sector fair, heir to the old 17th-century wood markets, and celebrates the Garlic Exaltation Day on the first Sunday of November.
Parish church of Santa María del Páramo
Monument
In a town of farming people with no great monuments, the parish church brings together a Romanesque carving of the Virgin, images of the 18th and 19th centuries, 15th-century paintings from the frieze of the central altarpiece and a Gothic cross.
Necropolis of Las Carbas
Nature
Discovered in 1974 during levelling work and documented in 1995, it holds thirty-two graves of slabs and cobbles covered with flagstones, aligned on the solstice lines and with no grave goods whatsoever.
Tullius's tablet to Diana
Curiosity
A stone slab found in the walls of León carries the first known reference to this territory: Tulio dedicates to Diana the antlers of the proud-headed stags he brought down on the plain of the Páramo, galloping on a spirited steed.
The twelve-metre banner
Curiosity
Among the most deeply rooted customs is that of carrying to the Castrotierra pilgrimage a council pendón with a twelve-metre pole, whose handling in the wind requires several men to relieve one another all along the way.
Fair of el 8 de septiembre
Activity
A multi-sector fair that ranks among the oldest in the province, with its origins in the 17th-century fairs of farm machinery and timber. In September an international street theatre festival is added to it.
The Ajo (garlic broth) of All Saints
Food and drink
A dish prepared for 1 November with cocido and chicken broth, garlic, breadcrumbs, salt, oil and paprika. It is accompanied by the town's artisan cured meats, above all chorizo and cured pork loin.