Logbook · 7 places

What to see and do in Villamanín

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

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

How far each place is from the centre of Villamanín

Collegiate church of Santa María de Arbas 9.4 km
Puerto de Pajares (mountain pass) 10 km

Towns near Villamanín

What to see in Cármenes 7 km · 3 places
What to see in La Pola de Gordón 9.4 km · 8 places
What to see in Vegacervera 11 km · 4 places
What to see in Matallana de Torío 14 km · 3 places
What to see in La Robla 15 km · 8 places
What to see in Carrocera 17 km · 3 places
What to see in Lena 20 km · 24 places
What to see in Aller 20 km · 23 places

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

What to see and do in Villamanín

Villamanín
Village
Villamanín, in Leonese Viḷḷamanín, is a municipality in the comarca of Los Argüellos, in the province of León, situated at the head of the river Bernesga, in the heart of the Cantabrian mountain range and at the foot of the Pajares pass, one of the natural gateways to Asturias. In the mid-19th century it had barely 86 inhabitants; the subsequent boom in mining, together with livestock farming and services, raised its population to the current 865. The municipality, at 1,133 metres of altitude, brings together nineteen villages within the Alto Bernesga biosphere reserve, declared by UNESCO in 2005 for its biodiversity and its role as a biological corridor for the Cantabrian brown bear and the Iberian wolf. It has a station on the León-Gijón railway line and the Valgrande-Pajares ski resort 14 kilometres away.
Collegiate church of Santa María de Arbas
Monument
The collegiate church of Santa María is located in Arbas del Puerto, in the municipality of Villamanín, on the southern slope of the Pajares pass, just one kilometre from the Alto de Pajares. It originated as a hospital for pilgrims on the road to Oviedo, whose founding is attributed to the León count Fruela Díaz and his wife Estefanía Sánchez. The abbey was subject to disentailment in 1866, and the hospital-hostel eventually disappeared, leaving only the church as a parish; since 1968 it has depended on the collegiate church of San Isidoro de León. A late Romanesque temple of sandstone ashlar built in 1216 under Alfonso IX on a foundation dating to around 1116, it is the only standing building of the former abbey; it was declared a historic-artistic monument on 3 June 1931.
Founding of the pilgrims' hospital of Arbas
Historical milestone
Around 1116 Count Fruela Díaz and his wife Estefanía Sánchez founded at the top of the pass a hospice to shelter travellers climbing from the meseta towards Oviedo; it was known as the Casa de los Probes.
The Camino de San Salvador through the pass
Activity
The pilgrim route linking León with the Cámara Santa in Oviedo crosses the municipality and stops at Arbas; the itinerary climbs the Bernesga valley to crown the Cantabrian watershed at more than 1,300 metres.
Puerto de Pajares (mountain pass)
Nature
Mountain pass of the Cantabrian range located between Pajares and Arbas del Puerto, at 1378 metres, which marks the boundary between the province of León and Asturias and is the historic route between the meseta and the coast. Known for its winter snowfalls, summer fogs and slopes of up to 17%, it lies close to the Valgrande-Pajares ski resort. It is crossed by the N-630 road, which climbs to its summit in tight hairpin bends above the headwaters of the Bernesga, and by the León-Gijón railway, which however does not reach the top, instead crossing the range lower down through the Perruca tunnel, with both routes following the valley of the río Pajares on the Asturian side and of the Bernesga on the León side.
The Pajares incline
Curiosity
The rampa de Pajares is the stretch of the León-Gijón railway that overcomes the difference in height of the Cantabrian range at the Pajares pass; its final section was built between 1880 and 1884, one of the greatest works of Spanish engineering of the 19th century. The railway does not cross the pass but goes beneath it, through the Perruca tunnel, the longest of the 61 on the line, with 3072 metres hand-dug between Villamanín, in León, and Lena, in Asturias. On its descent, the line loses 927 metres in altitude through a succession of curves, tunnels and 156 bridges that made it one of the most difficult mountain crossings in Europe, as described in 1970 by the photographer Trevor Rowe. After the opening of the Pajares bypass in 2023, its closure as a rail route is planned.
The peaks of the Alto Bernesga
Nature
Villamanín forms part, together with La Pola de Gordón, of the Alto Bernesga biosphere reserve, declared by UNESCO on 29 June 2005 under the Man and the Biosphere Programme. It covers some 33,442 hectares spread across 36 settlements, with around 3,800 inhabitants in total, and constitutes a transition zone between the Atlantic and Mediterranean domains, with beech woods, oak woods, juniper stands and high-mountain scrub that make it a biological corridor for species such as the Cantabrian brown bear and the Iberian wolf. Within the municipal area, nineteen villages are spread at the foot of ridges that rise above 2,000 metres on the watershed with Asturias.