Logbook · 6 places

What to see and do in Destriana

What to see and do in Destriana (La Bañeza, León): 6 places across monuments, nature, activities and curiosities, with a photo and a Google Maps location.

1 Villages · 1 Monuments · 1 Nature · 1 Curiosities · 2 Historical milestones

How far each place is from the centre of Destriana

Church of San Salvador de Destriana 250 m

Towns near Destriana

Spain › Castile and León › León › La Bañeza › Destriana

What to see and do in Destriana

Destriana
Village
Destriana is a municipality in the district of La Valduerna, in León, between the Peces and Duerna rivers, with about 420 inhabitants. Settled since prehistoric times, it was repopulated during the Reconquest thanks to a pre-Benedictine monastery under the patronage of Saint Michael the Archangel, founded in the early 10th century by the Leonese king Ramiro II. That convent was the burial place of notable figures, among them King Ramiro III, grandson of its founder, who retired there after his defeat by his cousin Vermudo II (983) and died in Destriana in his youth, on 26 June 984; his marble sarcophagus today serves as a bench at the entrance of the church of El Salvador. Its Romanesque church of San Salvador, from the 11th and 12th centuries, uses a 4th-century Corinthian capital as its holy water font.
Church of San Salvador de Destriana
Monument
The church of San Salvador, in Destriana (León), is a Romanesque church with Mozarabic features from the 11th-12th centuries, built over an earlier monastery. In the 10th century, Ramiro II of León ordered, at the request of his wife Urraca Sánchez, the construction here of a monastery under the patronage of Saint Michael, where the bishop of Astorga Saint Fortis was buried, and, in 985, King Ramiro III. In 987 Almanzor destroyed it; the present, simpler building was erected in the late 11th or early 12th century as San Salvador, and the town and its church were donated to the Order of Santiago in 1175. Single-naved, with barrel vaults and a triple-apse chancel, it retains horseshoe-arched windows, a 4th-century Corinthian capital used as a holy-water font and, at the entrance, a white marble sarcophagus.
House of the Commandery of Destriana
Curiosity
A building of the 17th and 18th centuries that was the seat of the Order of Santiago in the town. It still displays on its façade the relief of the rampant lion beneath the cross of Santiago, the arms of the lordship the Priory of San Marcos held until the 19th century.
Gold-bearing terraces of the Duerna
Nature
The bed of the Duerna is turned over for kilometres by the search for gold in its alluvial deposits; according to calculations of the average richness per cubic metre, at least fifteen hundred kilos of the metal were extracted.
Founding of the monastery of San Miguel
Historical milestone
Ramiro II of León, who reigned between 931 and 951, founded a pre-Benedictine monastery in the Duerna floodplain under the patronage of San Miguel Arcángel, endowed with royal properties, which became a driving force behind the repopulation of the Destriana valley.
Death and burial of Ramiro III
Historical milestone
Withdrawn to the monastery of San Miguel after clashing with his cousin Vermudo II, the Leonese king died here in 984 at barely twenty-four years of age and was buried within the monastic precinct. Centuries later Ferdinand II ordered his remains moved to Astorga.