Logbook · 7 places

What to see and do in Velilla del Río Carrión

What to see and do in Velilla del Río Carrión (Montaña Palentina, Palencia): 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 Velilla del Río Carrión

Espigüete Peak 14 km

Towns near Velilla del Río Carrión

Spain › Castile and León › Palencia › Montaña Palentina › Velilla del Río Carrión

What to see and do in Velilla del Río Carrión

Velilla del Río Carrión
Village
Velilla del Río Carrión is a municipality in the Montaña Palentina area, close to the boundaries with León and Cantabria, at the foot of the Espigüete, the highest peak in the area at 2,450 metres. The Tamarici Cantabri, founders of ancient Tamarica around the 3rd century BC, were its first inhabitants; until 1949 the village was called Velilla de Guardo. Over the last century it lived under the influence of coal mining, now closed, and its power station, the last major industry in the municipality, ceased operating in June 2020. It has 1,104 inhabitants, according to the INE, and on its land rise the Fuentes Tamáricas springs mentioned by Pliny the Elder, declared a monument in 1961.
Church of San Juan Degollado de Velilla
Monument
It preserves remains of the primitive Romanesque art of the original building, and its bell gable is the most significant historic vestige still standing in the centre of this town of the upper Carrión.
House of Tío Mateón
Monument
An eighteenth-century Baroque palace with an ashlar façade and three heraldic coats of arms, also known as the palace of the Enríquez after the noble family that owned it; it is the most notable civil building in the municipality.
Inauguration of the Camporredondo Reservoir
Historical milestone
Alfonso XIII inaugurated the Camporredondo reservoir in the upper Carrión in 1930, the first of the great dams of the Montaña Palentina and the start of the hydraulic transformation of all these valleys.
Trail of los Pantanos
Activity
The Ruta de los Pantanos (Route of the Reservoirs), also called the Ruta de las Aguas Mansas, runs through the Montaña Palentina, in northern Palencia, linking Velilla del Río Carrión and Cervera de Pisuerga over 55 kilometres along the P-210 road. The route starts in Velilla and skirts the Compuerto reservoir, whose dam was completed in 1960 next to Otero de Guardo, and the Camporredondo reservoir, one of the oldest in the province, inaugurated by Alfonso XIII in 1930, before passing Cardaño de Arriba, Alba de los Cardaños, Triollo and Vidrieros. Towards Cervera it also crosses the Requejada and Ruesga reservoirs, on the Pisuerga side, among peaks such as Peña Prieta, Espigüete and Curavacas and forests of beech, pine and oak.
Lagoons of Fuentes Carrionas
Nature
The lakes of Fuentes Carrionas, in the massif of the same name within the Cantabrian Mountains, on the border between Cervera de Pisuerga and Velilla del Río Carrión, are the official source of the Carrión River: the Carrión rises in this glacial cirque, a group of high-mountain lakes beneath the peaks of the natural park that also includes the Lago de las Lomas and gives its name to the whole protected area. They are two adjoining lakes surrounded by the highest elevations in the area, Peña Prieta, the Agujas de Cardaño and the Mojón de Tres Provincias; the upper lake, the larger of the two, pours its waters into the lower one, from which the stream that gives rise to the Carrión sets out. Pliny the Elder already mentioned this lake in his Naturalis Historia. It is reached on foot from Cardaño de Arriba or from the San Glorio pass.
Espigüete Peak
Nature
At 2,450 metres, its white limestone mass stands out unmistakably on the western edge of the Montaña Palentina and is, along with the Curavacas and Las Lomas, one of the three great summits of the comarca.