Logbook · 5 places

What to see and do in Riaño

What to see and do in Riaño (La Montaña de Riaño, León): 5 places across monuments, nature, activities and curiosities, with a photo and a Google Maps location.

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

How far each place is from the centre of Riaño

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Spain › Castile and León › León › La Montaña de Riaño › Riaño

What to see and do in Riaño

Riaño
Village
Riaño is a municipality in the province of León, located on the southern slope of the Cantabrian mountain range, in the Montaña de Riaño y Mampodre Regional Park, near the confluence of the Esla and Orza rivers, from which it takes its name: from the Latin rivi ăngǔlu, “the angle of the river.” The administrative name brings together two distinct settlements: old Riaño, with residency records dating from 1752, completely demolished in July 1987 to build the Riaño reservoir, and new Riaño, developed since 1980 in the Valcayo area to house the expropriated residents; the reservoir then flooded nine villages in the valley, and the eviction left protests and police charges in a district that became depopulated. It is 95 kilometers from the city of León and has 476 inhabitants.
Church of Nuestra Señora del Rosario de Riaño
Monument
The church of Nuestra Señora del Rosario was moved in 1987 to its present site, at the entrance to Riaño, opposite the viaduct over the reservoir, after being dismantled in the village of La Puerta, flooded by the reservoir; it forms a monumental group together with a hórreo brought from Salio and a modern bell tower where the bells of the vanished church of Riaño now hang. The nave dates back to the 14th century, and the chancel is even older, from the 13th and 14th centuries; it is divided into a rectangular nave flanked by two apses, and in the chancel apse, in excellent condition, Gothic paintings are preserved that remained hidden under whitewash until the building's relocation brought them to light, along with pointed arches and ribbed vaulting typical of early Gothic.
The demolition of old Riaño
Historical milestone
The village was demolished in July 1987 and the reservoir was closed on 31 December of that year, hours before new European environmental directives came into force; the valley and eight hamlets were left under water.
Ethnographic Museum of Riaño
Monument
It brings together pieces of Vadiniense culture and medieval funerary stelae recovered before the valley was flooded, along with the implements and belongings of the stock-rearing life prior to 1987 in the eastern León mountains.
Regional Park of the Montaña de Riaño y Mampodre
Nature
It protects grasslands, heathland and broom scrub dotted with magnificent remains of beech and oak woods around 1,130 metres, where the Esla and the Orza meet at the foot of the Cantabrian range. Until 2019 it was called the Picos de Europa Regional Park, with which it coincides in its northernmost stretch; together with it, it forms the largest limestone formation in western Europe, with potholes more than a thousand metres deep and very marked glacial erosion, and it holds the region's highest peak, Torre Cerredo, at 2650 metres. Beech woods are the main forest, accompanied by holly, yew and oak, and among its fauna the chamois, roe deer and wolf stand out, along with the occasional Cantabrian brown bear, together with more than a hundred bird species such as the capercaillie, the golden eagle and the bearded vulture.