Village
Caso is an Asturian concejo — in Asturian, Casu — located in the eastern foothills of the mountain range, with somewhat fewer than 1,500 inhabitants and its entire territory within the Redes natural park, where the río Nalón rises next to Tarna. It borders Piloña, Ponga, Aller, Sobrescobio and, already in León, Maraña and Puebla de Lillo. Among its mountains stand out the Torres peak, at 2,104 metres, and ridges such as the Cueto Negro; beech, chestnut and oak trees cover much of a territory that holds the greatest vertebrate biodiversity in Asturias. Castilian and Asturian — here spoken as «casín» — have been co-official since 1997. Its Casín cheese is documented from the 13th century, and Tanes preserves the Renaissance collegiate church of Santa María la Real.
Monument
The collegiate church of Santa María la Real stands on a natural terrace at the edge of the Tanes reservoir, in the Asturian council of Caso, and is considered one of the finest examples of rural Asturian church architecture of the Early Modern period. It was built on the site of the medieval church, to a design by Juan de Cerecedo el Viejo, master builder of Oviedo Cathedral, blending Renaissance and Gothic elements in a single three-bay nave with star-ribbed vaults and transverse side chapels. The works dragged on: they began with the western façade around 1560, and by 1652, the date of the contract for the main altarpiece, the essential structure was already finished; the round-arched arcaded porch on Tuscan columns and the south doorway were designed in the first third of the 17th century. It is declared a Historic-Artistic Monument.
Nature
Redes Natural Park extends across the councils of Caso and Sobrescobio, in central-eastern Asturias, and takes its name from the Redes beech forest, in Caso. It was declared a natural park in 1996 and a Unesco biosphere reserve in September 2001; it is also protected as a Site of Community Importance and a Special Protection Area for Birds. Its very rugged relief preserves traces of glacial erosion, with cirques and glacial valleys, together with a karst landscape of limestone pavements, potholes and sinkholes. Its rivers, tributaries of the Nalón, which rises at the Tarna pass, form waterfalls such as the Tabayón de Mongayu. Vegetation is dominated by beeches and oaks in the upper basins of the Nalón and the Ponga. It covers 377 square kilometres and is home to bears, wolves and one of the largest populations of chamois in Asturias.
Nature
A waterfall of about 60 metres formed by the Mongayu stream in the cut of a glacial cirque, reached by a path starting at Tarna and crossing the Monte Saperu beech forest. It was declared a natural monument on 22 May 2003. It lies within Redes Natural Park, near the village of La Campona, and before the park's second PRUG (Management Plan) declaration opened up access, a permit had to be requested at the interpretation centre in Campo de Caso. Shortly after starting the route, a detour leads to the Rebollos de Llanu'l Toru, two large Pyrenean oaks with a trunk twenty metres in circumference standing at the heart of the forest; the main path continues to the foot of the waterfall, also known as the Taballón waterfall.
Nature
Deboyo cave, located in the biosphere reserve of Redes Natural Park, in the council of Caso, is a 200-metre karst cavity through which the Nalón river flows, near the village of Les Yanes, in the parish of Campo de Caso, parallel to the AS-117 road. It shelters the roosts of five bat species found in the park: the Mediterranean horseshoe bat, the river bat, the greater horseshoe bat, the dwarf bat and the cave bat. It was declared a natural monument of Asturias on 22 May 2003.
Nature
Lake Ubales is a small mountain lake of glacial origin located in the council of Caso (Asturias), at around 1,690 metres altitude, on the north slope of Cascayón peak, within Redes Natural Park. It covers an area of 10,546 square metres and has a perimeter of 409 metres; at times of greatest water inflow its maximum depth reaches four metres. It formed in an ancient glacial cirque, a semicircular basin with steep walls where the snow that fed the valley's ice tongue accumulated. It is only accessible on foot, from the villages of Caleao, La Felguerina, La Infiesta or Bezanes along the Los Arrudos gorge, or more conveniently from the San Isidro pass, already in the province of León.
Nature
Tiatordos peak is a mountain of 1,951 metres located in eastern Asturias and part of Redes Natural Park, where it marks the boundary between the councils of Caso and Ponga. Its prominence, the distinctive silhouette of its summit and the beauty of its surroundings make it one of the park's most emblematic mountains. From Caso, the most common ascent route starts from the village of Pendones; from Ponga it is climbed via Taranes and Tanda.
Nature
At 2,104 metres it is the highest point of the council of Caso, on the boundary with Aller, within the Sierra de Valverde and Redes Natural Park. Its south face, darkened by its quartzite nature, offers some of the most interesting climbing routes in the Cantabrian mountain range; the normal ascent route starts from the San Isidro pass. The sharp, pointed shape of its summit makes it easily recognisable from other mountains in Asturias, León and even from the Montaña Palentina, and it overlooks the valleys of the Aller and the Nalón.
Curiosity
A cheese with a protected designation of origin, made by hand in the councils of Caso, Sobrescobio and Piloña, in the central Asturian mountains, one of the earliest documented cheeses in Asturias, already mentioned in 14th-century texts. It is made with raw cow's milk, traditionally from the Asturiana de los Valles or casina breed, curdled with milk from a cow that has just calved and kept for several days in the butiellu, a pig's stomach. After draining for days in a cloth called the zube, the curd is kneaded and salted into the shape of a gorollo, and this kneading is repeated several times with the rabilar machine, sometimes adding pieces of well-cured cheese to strengthen its flavour. It is marked with a wooden stamp identifying each maker.
Curiosity
The municipality is the great craft centre of Asturian wooden footwear: at its 19th-century height it had several dozen clog makers who carved thousands of pairs a year for the region's markets. The motifs carved on the upper act as each family workshop's signature.
Activity
Traditionally held at the Arnicio pass on the last weekend in August and moved to Campo de Caso since 2015, it brings together the makers of the designation of origin. It is declared a Festival of Tourist Interest of the Principality of Asturias.
Nature
A fall of some sixty metres down which the Mongayo stream plunges in the south of the municipality, inside the Redes natural park; tabayón is precisely the Asturian word for waterfall, and it is a declared natural monument.
Nature
The longest river in Asturias springs from the Fuente La Nalona, in the heights of the parish of Tarna, inside the Redes park; from that thread of water it runs more than one hundred and thirty kilometres to the Cantabrian Sea.
Monument
At Veneros, the historic capital of the trade, it is explained how the Asturian madreña clog is carved by hand; each maker marked his own with painted or fire-branded designs, a personal signature recognisable from village to village.
Nature
A waterfall hemmed into the beech wood of the Redes Natural Park, reached by a track from Tarna; it was declared a natural monument on 22 May 2003 along with other wetlands and waterfalls of the Asturian mountains.
Nature
A broad meadow of pasture ringed by beech woods in the heart of Redes, dotted with shepherds' huts and reached on foot from Bezanes; it is one of the best places in the Principality to hear the red deer rut in autumn.
Monument
The Casa de Pandu, in the Asturian concejo of Caso (Nalón), is a rural stone manor house of the 16th century: a typical two-storey rustic house, built in masonry with ashlar blocks at the corners, windows and frames, and with a round-arched gateway at the main door. Reformed several times, it has had the most varied uses over time -Inquisition jail, town hall, school- and remains one of the oldest civil buildings in the concejo.
Nature
A narrow limestone gorge that opens above the village of Caleao, in the heart of Redes; the waymarked route that runs through it, of almost twenty-three kilometres and high difficulty, climbs between vertical walls up to the shepherds' huts of the sierra.