Village
Aller is a mining municipality of Asturias, in the Caudal basin together with Lena and Mieres, with about 10,000 inhabitants and its capital at Cabañaquinta since 1869. It is crossed by the river Aller, which in its lower course forms a deep valley between wooded hillsides dominated by the headframes of coal-mine shafts, while upstream the landscape opens into a high-mountain valley as far as the San Isidro pass, at 1,520 metres, on the border with León, with its ski resort and the tourist town of Felechosa. The municipality preserves the Romanesque church of San Vicente de Serrapio and the sanctuary of Miravalles, and holds as natural monuments the Hoces del Pino and del Aller gorges, as well as peaks such as Torres, at 2,100 metres.
Monument
Built on successive earlier structures, it holds in the sacristy a Roman tombstone dedicated to Jupiter and an inscription dating its fabric to the year 894. The Romanesque renovations of the 12th century gave it its triple chevet; its paintings date from the 17th century. In 922 it was altered during the pre-Romanesque period by the priest Gagius, and a team of archaeologists found burials more than a thousand years old beneath its floor. It stands a kilometre from Serrapio, beside the road, on a viewpoint overlooking the middle valley of the Aller. The book Rutas sagradas (2015), by Esther de Aragón and Sebastián Vázquez, notes that, despite an unremarkable exterior, its interior holds great symbolic richness.
Monument
An example of 12th-century rural Romanesque built in the village of Llamas, in the upper Aller valley. It has been a Monumento Histórico-Artístico (Spain's heritage designation in force between 1931 and 1985) since 1963 and is, along with San Vicente de Serrapio, the main Romanesque landmark in the municipality.
Monument
Soto castle, in the village of Soto de Aller, in the middle valley of the Aller river, originates in the 12th century, although the surviving remains date mainly from the 14th, when it was rebuilt to meet the defensive and residential needs of the local nobility. It was the residence of the García de Soto family, and its structure, with cylindrical towers and sturdy walls, reflects the late Gothic style of medieval fortifications. It combined defensive and domestic uses, and during the Peninsular War it served as a refuge for guerrilla fighters; from the 19th century onward it fell into disuse and was left in ruins, until its restoration in 2022. Urraca la Asturiana, the illegitimate daughter of Alfonso VII, spent time there. Declared a Monumento histórico-artístico (heritage protection category) in 1975, it is the concejo's foremost example of military architecture.
Monument
The sanctuary of Nuestra Señora de Miravalles was built in 1745 in the parish of San Martín de Soto, on a hillock overlooking the valley, on the left bank of the Aller river, whose name already appears in the archives of Oviedo cathedral from the year 857. It owes its name to its privileged position, in the middle of a large flat meadow — uncommon in Asturias — from which the agricultural and mining valley of the Aller can be seen. It is the starting point of a route much used by hikers and mountain cyclists, which continues uphill through native woodland. Every 8 September it hosts the romería de Miravalles, one of the three great Alleran festive gatherings alongside the Humanitarios de Moreda and San Antonio de Piñeres.
Nature
A short gorge carved by the Pino river, only 6 kilometres long, near the village of Pino, in the concejo de Aller; its almost vertical walls narrow to barely 300 metres, down to less than six metres wide, forming numerous rapids and waterfalls before flowing into the San Isidro river. Declared a natural monument on 19 April 2001, it protects 76 hectares of beech woods and heathland with holly, hazel and some sessile oak and yew, as well as meadows and chestnut groves on its final stretch. Its fauna, alongside the Cantabrian capercaillie, includes the otter, the wolf, the chamois, the roe deer, the wild boar and the red deer. The Fuentes de Invierno range, to which it belongs, had already been classed as an outstanding landscape in 1978 by ICONA.
Nature
A thousand-year-old specimen of Taxus baccata planted in the square of the church of San Juan, in Santibáñez de la Fuente (concejo de Aller), 12 metres tall, with a 15-metre spread and a girth of 3.4 metres. As often happened with such trees, it was venerated by ancient communities for its age, more than a thousand years, which the church later took advantage of to build its temple beside it. It was declared a natural monument on 27 April 1995 and included in the natural resources plan of Asturias.
Nature
The San Isidro pass is a crossing of the Cantabrian mountain range linking the upper Aller valley, in Asturias, with the province of León, reaching a maximum height of 1,520 metres; it is crossed by the AS-112 road, on the Asturian side, and the LE-331, on the León side. It is home to two ski resorts, San Isidro on the León side and Fuentes de Invierno on the Asturian side. The road, opened in the 19th century, became the true communication channel between the Aller valley and the outside world and eased the exploitation of the first Alleran coal deposits; the pass, or the Fuentes de Invierno bypass, has on several occasions served as a stage of the Vuelta a España and the Vuelta a Asturias.
Nature
It rises at the Vegarada pass and runs for some 38 kilometres through the municipality to which it gives its name before joining the Lena at Ujo to form the Caudal. According to García Arias its name comes from the Indo-European root *al-, "white", found in other river names in the region.
Nature
A 1,557-metre summit shared by Aller and Laviana, recognisable by the Ojo de Buey, a wide opening that pierces the rocky crest. On its Aller flank, next to Pelúgano, one of the busiest climbing schools in the central mountains operates.
Nature
A natural crossing of the Cantabrian mountain range at 1,555 metres, linking the provinces of León and Asturias in a southeast-to-northwest direction and running alongside the Las Ubiñas-La Mesa natural park, a biosphere reserve. The León side, the only paved one, climbs gently from Lugueros to the top; the Asturian side, unpaved from the village of Rioaller, descends with steep gradients and hairpin bends to Collanzo, at 510 metres, and is popular with mountain cyclists. Several studies point to it as one of the mountain routes used by the Roman legions heading north during the Cantabrian Wars, although others point to the Piedrasluengas or San Glorio passes; what is certain is that the army of Octavian Augustus overcame the obstacle of the mountain range through a nearby area.
Curiosity
Roman archaeological site of probable military use, excavated since 2003 on the summit of Mount Curriechos (la Boya peak), at 1,728 metres, on the Carraceo ridge, between Aller and Lena, through which runs the via de la Carisa, a road that crossed the Cantabrian mountain range from south to north. The place name recalls General Publius Carisius, legate in Lusitania between 26 and 22 BC, who fought the Astures, and it already appears in 1036 in the cathedral archive of Oviedo. Pilum and javelin points, catapult darts and coins have been found, some minted by Carisius himself. One kilometre to the north, at Homón del Faro, the walls of another fortification are preserved, once thought to be linked to a clash between Astures and Romans, but which carbon-14 dating places between the 7th and 8th centuries.
Curiosity
Three dolmen-type funerary structures, also called Cantu de Cruces, on the ridge that separates Aller from Lena near Boo. Dating from around 4000 BC, they are the oldest known trace of human presence in the municipality.
Curiosity
A sandstone monolith almost two metres high driven into the ground inside the village of Pola del Pino and carved with crosses, cup marks and a human figure. Studies do not settle whether it is a prehistoric menhir or a boundary marker of the medieval roads.
Activity
The Fuentes de Invierno winter resort, in the Asturian council of Aller, was opened on 31 March 2007 as an incentive to diversify an economy hit by the mining industry's decline. It lies on the Asturian side of the San Isidro pass, in the Cantabrian mountain range, with its base at 1,500 metres altitude, a middle area called Llana'l Fitu at 1,700 metres and the upper area near 2,000; its north-facing orientation ensures the quality and quantity of the snow. It has three chairlifts, a drag lift and a moving carpet lift giving access to 8.7 kilometres of marked ski runs, as well as a cafeteria, a first-aid post and a ski and snowboard school. It is the second ski resort in Asturias, close to San Isidro, in León, with which it forms the largest skiable area of the Cantabrian mountain range.
Activity
It is celebrated in Moreda every 11 November, the feast of Saint Martin of Tours, around a society founded in 1905 to settle disputes between stockbreeders from Aller and Lena. The day begins with a sung mass accompanied by Asturian bagpipes, followed by the puya'l ramu, an auction of spelt-bread buns, and a parade of floats and bagpipe bands in which both participants and spectators wear local or regional traditional dress. At the table there is no lack of fabada, casadielles and panchón, a dessert typical of the council made with spelt-bread crumbs, sugar and lard. Declared a Fiesta of Tourist Interest in 1984, in 2007 it received, together with the village of Moreda, the Award for Exemplary Village of Asturias.
Nature
A narrow gorge some three hundred metres long cut by the River Pino through the limestone of Peña Redonda, with almost vertical walls that at some points narrow to six metres; a natural monument since 2001 covering 76 hectares.
Curiosity
A variety of central Asturian spoken above all in the upper valley, characterised by the so-called che vaqueira and by phenomena of vowel metaphony that clearly set it apart from the speech of the neighbouring municipalities.
Nature
A gorge with almost vertical walls cut by the River Pino, with stretches less than six metres wide; its 76 hectares of beech wood, chestnut wood and high pasture were declared a natural monument on 19 April 2001.
Curiosity
A cultural and charitable society of Moreda (Aller) founded in 1905 to defend the rights of the valley's herders over the pastures bordering Lena, a lawsuit they won in 1914; once that goal was achieved, the society turned to relieving the needs of the parish - hence the nickname Los Humanitarios -, building the sewer system of Moreda and Caborana and preserving popular customs, among them the fabada meal on the feast day of San Martín, patron saint of the place. Every 11 November it takes its festival to the streets, with residents dressed in traditional Asturian costume; interrupted during the civil war, it was revived in 1961 and is one of the oldest fellowship celebrations in the mining basins.
Nature
The river Aller has carved in the mountain limestone a succession of deep, shadowy gorges that narrow the valley; together with the foces of the river Pino they make up the most abrupt and deeply cut river landscape in the whole concejo.
Activity
At the end of August the village of Piñeres holds the pilgrimage festival of San Antonio, one of the most deeply rooted dates in the festive calendar of Aller, which for days fills the saint's meadow with people from all over the valley.
Food and drink
A dessert from Aller made with a bread roll of escanda (spelt) flour, called a pancha, crumbled and kneaded with soft lard and sugar or honey. It is prepared on various dates of the year: at the Los Humanitarios de Moreda festival, in November; on 8 September; at the Soto de Aller festival, or on the last weekend of August at the Carmín in Felechosa, a village renowned for making the best panchón in the whole municipality. In villages such as Felechosa the custom survives whereby young men, on leaving the chigres (cider bars) at dawn during the romerías, would go to the brides' houses to ask for panchón.