Village
Cangas del Narcea is the largest concejo in Asturias by area and one of the largest in Spain, with 823 km² in the southwest of the Principality, in what is known as the Puerta de Asturias. Its capital, crossed by the río Narcea, which has given it its name since the 1930s, when it stopped being called Cangas de Tineo, gathers about 11,300 inhabitants together with settlements such as Corias, Cibuyo or Limés. The territory, with rugged relief and deep valleys, is home to the Muniellos Natural Reserve, with the largest area of oak woodland on the Cantabrian coast, within the natural park of the Fuentes del Narcea y de Ibias. It is one of the few Asturian concejos where wine is produced, and it preserves the monastery of Corias; at the feast of the Carmen more than 80,000 rockets are burned at the Descarga.
Monument
This Baroque church, with a flat façade crowned by two towers with slate roofs, replaced an old Romanesque church that in 1642 was said to be already 500 years old. Its royal patronage was ceded by the monarch to Fernando de Valdés, archbishop of Granada, born in the town, who poured his resources into his home village; the plan of the new building, erected between 1639 and 1642, was drawn up by Bartolomé Fernández Lechuga, master builder of the Alhambra. The demolition of the old church set the Queipo de Llano and the Omaña, the town's noble families, against each other over the placement of their tombs, a dispute settled in favour of the former in 1642. A Monumento Histórico Artístico Nacional (a former national heritage-protection designation, predecessor of today's Bien de Interés Cultural) since 1982 and a basilica since 1992, it holds a notable set of Baroque altarpieces.
Monument
Founded in 1032 by counts Piniolo Jiménez and Aldonza Muñoz and occupied by Benedictine monks, it is known as the Asturian Escorial. It reached its greatest splendour between the 12th and 13th centuries, when it came to own land across much of western Asturias and the neighbouring province of León. A fire in 1773 destroyed the whole building except the church, forcing it to be rebuilt in Neoclassical style, with a rectangular plan around two courtyards, under the direction of Miguel Ferro Caaveiro. After the disentailment it served as a school, a prison and, from 1860, a college for Dominican missionaries. Declared a Monumento Histórico-Artístico Nacional (a former national heritage-protection designation, predecessor of today's Bien de Interés Cultural) in 1982 and restored between 2006 and 2012, it has operated as a Parador Nacional since 15 July 2013.
Monument
The palace of Toreno, in Cangas del Narcea, is one of the most notable buildings of Asturian Baroque. It was built in the 17th century for don Álvaro Queipo de Llano y Bernaldo de Quirós, on being made Count of Toreno by Philip IV. It has a square plan, with three square-section towers at as many corners which, like the central body, keep a harmony in the arrangement of openings and coats of arms; the axis of the façade is marked by the entrance portal, above which two lintelled openings set in a stone wall are stacked, and the first floor shows balconies on stone corbels. Declared a Monumento Histórico Artístico (a former national heritage-protection designation, predecessor of today's Bien de Interés Cultural), it today houses the seat of the municipal council.
Monument
Built in the Acebo range, it is one of the busiest pilgrimage centres in Asturias. Every 8 September it brings together people from all over the west in a pilgrimage festival that mixes devotion with long picnics.
Nature
It protects 59.7 square kilometres spread between Cangas del Narcea and Ibias and preserves the largest oak forest in Spain and one of the best preserved in Europe. It comprises three mountains, Muniellos, La Viliella and Valdebois, with altitudes ranging from 680 metres to the 1,640 of the pico de la Candanosa; on the mountain of Muniellos rises the short river of the same name, a tributary of the Narcea. Unesco declared it a biosphere reserve in 2000, and in 2002 it became a strict nature reserve within the natural park of las Fuentes del Narcea, Degaña e Ibias. Visits, limited to twenty people a day, must be authorised by the Consejería de Medio Ambiente of the Principado de Asturias.
Nature
Declared a natural park in 2002, it covers 47,589 hectares across the municipalities of Cangas del Narcea, Degaña and Ibias, taking in the upper reaches of the Narcea and the Ibias. It holds one of the best populations of brown bear and Cantabrian capercaillie on the peninsula. It is bounded to the south by the Cantabrian ridge and to the east by the natural park of Somiedo; within it lie the sierras of Degaña, Rañadoiru, Obayu, Cazamosa, Caniellas, Soldepuestu and Xenestosu. It also takes in the biosphere reserve of Monte Muniellos, declared in 2003, covering 60 square kilometres. The law that created it dates from 13 December 2002, although the management plan did not go out for public consultation until August 2005.
Nature
At 2,007 metres, the cueto de Arbas is the highest point in the municipality of Cangas del Narcea, close to the puerto de Leitariegos. It forms part of the natural park of las Fuentes del Narcea y del Ibias and of the Muniellos Biosphere Reserve, and gives its name to a nature reserve included in the Red Regional de Espacios Naturales Protegidos de Asturias, though still without an official declaration. Its slopes, a former glacial area open only to the east, retain traces of that shaping and descend from birch woods and beech forests to peat bogs such as those of Chouchinas and Reconcos and the laguna de Arbás. Among its wildlife are wild boar, roe deer, Cantabrian chamois, capercaillie and, as its most singular species, the brown bear.
Nature
A mountain pass of the Cantabrian Mountains at 1,525 metres of altitude linking the Asturian municipality of Cangas del Narcea with the León district of Villablino, via the AS-213 road on its Asturian side and the LE-497 on the León side. On the Asturian side lies the Reserva Natural Parcial del Cueto de Arbas, and on the León side the Reserva de la Biosfera del Valle de Laciana. Nearby is the Leitariegos ski resort, which belongs to the province of León.
Nature
The sierra del Acebo is a small mountain range in the Asturian municipality of Cangas del Narcea, situated beside the río Narcea. It stretches for twelve kilometres, from Rabo del Asno or Santo to Veigalapiedra, with an average altitude of around 1,100 metres and very wide differences in level. On it stands the shrine that gives its name to the whole range: the Santuario de Nuestra Señora del Acebo, an important pilgrimage site and the second most important shrine in Asturias.
Curiosity
Protected designation of origin for the wine produced in the Cangas wine-growing area, which extends across the municipalities of Allande, Cangas del Narcea, Degaña, Grandas de Salime, Ibias, Illano and Pesoz, as well as several parishes of Tineo. Regulated in 2001 as a Vino de la Tierra, it attained Vino de Calidad status in 2009 and today is a protected designation of origin with EU recognition, producing white and red wines made chiefly from the native varieties albarín blanco, albillo, garnacha tintorera, mencía, picapoll and verdejo negro. It is one of the very few vineyard areas in Asturias, trained on trellises on the steepest slopes; the Benedictine monks of Corias spread its cultivation from the 11th century, until phylloxera destroyed the vines in 1890.
Curiosity
Pottery worked on primitive wheels with a mixture of pale and reddish clay, burnished and fired under sods of earth and grass: the lack of oxygen in the kiln gives the pieces their steely grey colour. From there come the pucheiros, the xarros and the tarreñas for cream.
Activity
On 16 July, during the Carmen festivities, more than 80,000 rockets are fired over the town in barely six minutes. Along with the Magdalena festival on the 22nd, it is declared of Regional Tourist Interest and is organised by the Sociedad de Artesanos del Carmen.
Activity
It is held around the Pilar bank holiday and fills the central streets with craft stalls and local wine. It includes a re-enactment of carrying the grapes by cart and treading them in the town hall courtyard; it is a Festival of Tourist Interest of the Principality.
Monument
The Palacio de Omaña, together with the collegiate church of Santa María Magdalena, closes off the main square of Cangas del Narcea; it was the residence of the Omaña lineage, who went as far as litigating against the Queipo de Llano family over the new parish church. Its construction dates from the 16th century, although it has undergone various renovations that have notably altered the façade; it is arranged around a central courtyard with columns, and its main façade, flanked by two towers, displays several coats of arms amid rendered rubble masonry and ashlar at the openings and corners. Today the building houses municipal offices, including the youth information office, the language normalization service, exhibition halls, the tourist office and the municipal library.
Historical milestone
The cure of María de Noceda, crippled from birth, was recorded in 1575 as the first miracle attributed to the Virgen del Acebo and set off the building of the sanctuary, raised in the fifteen years following the event.
Nature
An extensive beech wood at the head of the Narcea, inside the Fuentes del Narcea, Degaña e Ibias Natural Park and the Muniellos Biosphere Reserve; it is one of the most stable bear territories in the Cantabrian range.
Nature
Communal woodland that the inhabitants of Moal bought bit by bit from the counts of Toreno from the 19th century onwards until it was entirely theirs; today it forms part of the natural park and its care earned the village the Exemplary Village of Asturias Prize in 2018.
Curiosity
The playwright Alejandro Rodríguez Álvarez was born on 23 March 1903 in Besullo, where his parents worked as schoolteachers; from that mansion he took the pen name Casona with which he signed his theatre. The village has an interpretation centre about him.
Historical milestone
Alfonso XI signed in Burgos on 14 April 1326 a privilege that exempted the residents of the pass of Leitariegos in perpetuity from taxes and from military service in exchange for assisting travellers and keeping the pass open during the snows.