Logbook · 7 places

What to see and do in Riello

What to see and do in Riello (La Montaña de Luna, León): 7 places across monuments, nature, activities and curiosities, with a photo and a Google Maps location.

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

How far each place is from the centre of Riello

Towns near Riello

Spain › Castile and León › León › La Montaña de Luna › Riello

What to see and do in Riello

Riello
Village
Riello is a municipality in the province of León, in the western Leonese mountains, whose municipal area, of almost 236 km², brings together 39 population centres along the valley of the river Omaña, on the southern edge of the Cantabrian mountain range. Inhabited since the Bronze Age, it was worked for gold in Roman times, and since the 14th century its councils have been linked to the Counts of Luna. It lives on agriculture and livestock farming, in a landscape of mountains and valleys with a semi-scattered population; its name, from the Latin rivellus, alludes to its position between the streams Ceide and Ariegos. It preserves the 15th-century castle of Benal, and every 15 August holds the Pandorado pilgrimage, with a procession of the villages of Omaña and their banners. It has about 570 inhabitants.
Castle of Benal
Monument
Fortress of the Omaña area built on an old Roman castro to watch over the gold workings of the Omaña, in the village of El Castillo, in the municipality of Riello. Already documented in 1366 as the castro de Benal, when Henry II of Trastámara granted it to Juan González Bazán, it passed nine years later to Diego Fernández Quiñones, for which reason it is considered the first hereditary fortress of the house of Quiñones. It was rebuilt in the 15th century by Diego Fernández de Quiñones, first count of Luna, and served as a prison between 1486 and 1492 and again in the 19th century. Triangular in plan, the keep and some walls survive of the castle today; at the end of the 19th century the rest was destroyed, its materials used to pave the nearby road.
Shrine of Nuestra Señora de Pandorado
Monument
A Marian church in the settlement of Pandorado that acts as the comarca shrine of Omaña; the villages of the valley come to it in pilgrimage with their council banners unfurled.
Pilgrimage of Pandorado
Activity
Every 15 August the villages of Omaña climb up to Pandorado, in the municipality of Riello (La Montaña de Luna, León), led by their pendones, enormous cloth standards that only the strongest young men can carry and which are lowered on arrival before the image in the sanctuary. Pandorado stands at 1,145 metres in the valley of the río Omaña, and its name is already documented in 1234 and 1271. The sanctuary and its pilgrimage gave this small hamlet, with barely a dozen inhabitants, a distinct character as a place of welcome for pilgrims: the Ensenada Cadastre of 1793 already mentions an inn and a dining room for the devout, a tradition continued today with rural tourism lodgings, a restaurant and a hotel. In earlier times it was also a gathering point for transhumant flocks before descending to Extremadura.
First documented mention of Vegarienza
Historical milestone
A document from the year 857 mentions Vega de Areza, today Vegarienza, in Riello, in the first written notice of the settlement of the Omaña valley, centuries before the comarca fell under the lordship of the Counts of Luna.
Biosphere Reserve of the Omaña and Luna Valleys
Nature
Biosphere reserve created in 2005 that protects 81,159 hectares shared between the León municipalities of Sena de Luna, Los Barrios de Luna, Soto y Amío, Murias de Paredes, Riello and Valdesamario, in the districts of Omaña and Luna. Bounded by mountain ranges linking the Cantabrian range with the mountains of León, with heights of over 2,000 metres in the sierra de la Cañada, it includes the basins of the rivers Luna and Omaña. Its birch woods, oak woods and upland pastures shelter brown bear, capercaillie, broom hare and Iberian desman. It is home to 86 population centres traditionally devoted to farming and livestock, with a coal-mining industry now in decline, and it preserves more than a hundred examples of religious architecture, mostly Baroque.
Mountain range of Gistredo y el alto de la Cañada
Nature
The municipality is closed off to the north and east by the sierras of La Filera and Gistredo, where the Alto de la Cañada reaches 2,157 metres and the Cueto Agudo 1,884, the high point of Riello's thirty-nine villages.