Village
Ibias is a concejo of Asturias bordering Galicia and the province of León, with 1,084 inhabitants (2025), in which, as in other Asturian municipalities, eonaviego is spoken. Its relief contrasts the 200 metres of the río Ibias valley with the nearly 2000 of its sierras, whose highest peak is Miravales, at 1969 metres; the eastern part of the concejo belongs to the natural park of the Fuentes del Narcea, Degaña e Ibias, and very close by lies the Muniellos oak woodland, of exceptional ecological interest. Among its native vegetation of cork oaks, chestnut trees and strawberry trees, with beech and oak groves in the highest areas, heather abounds, from which the comarca's excellent mountain honeys are gathered at high altitude; the río Ibias also flows down among chestnut groves, and wine is made at Cecos.
Monument
Parish church of Santa María de San Antolín de Ibias, with a single nave covered by a barrel vault, a vaulted semicircular apse and a timber roof; its original structure dates from the 11th century and it has undergone reforms and additions from the 13th to the 19th century. The building and the low wall supporting the porch are built of slate; the porch, with slender little columns, decorates the exterior, while the main façade is topped by a three-tier bell-gable, with the doorway on the first tier, a large oculus on the second and the belfry, crowned by a pediment, on the third. Inside, a large round arch separates the nave from the presbytery, and the apse is divided into two zones marked by string courses.
Monument
Also called Barrero, it is an 18th-century country manor house with a central three-storey tower of rubble masonry and a slate roof, to which two wings were added. A battlemented wall closes the grounds and above the door is a coat of arms carved in wood with an R.
Nature
At 1,969 metres it is the highest summit in the municipality, on the southern rim where the steepest slopes are concentrated. The district covers an enormous range of height, from 200 metres on the banks of the River Ibias to almost two thousand in these ranges.
Nature
It rises at the Puerto de Cerredo, in the Cantabrian Mountains, and crosses the concejo of Ibias, to which it gives its name, from east to west, gathering the waters of the Forma, the Cervos and the Piliceiro before joining the Navia, of which it is the largest tributary, at the site of the Boadil bridge, on the Salime reservoir, already within the Lugo municipality of Negueira de Muñiz. Along its course it passes through Degaña, Cerredo, Taladrid, Cecos, San Antolín de Ibias and Marentes. Its basin structures a large part of the Fuentes del Narcea, Degaña e Ibias nature park, and marks strong contrasts in relief within the concejo, which ranges from 200 metres by the river to the 1,969 metres of Pico Miravales. Electrofishing surveys between 1997 and 2019 have detected the Duero nase (boga del Duero) in its waters.
Curiosity
Circular masonry enclosures more than two metres high, topped by projecting eaves of flat slabs, inside which the beehives were kept to stop bears from climbing up to them. At Seroiro, by contrast, raised talameiros were used.
Curiosity
Travelling woodworkers who carved bowls, tableware and utensils and sold them at fairs and markets, carrying their lathe on the back of a pack animal. The ethnographic museum of Sisterna covers this trade, which had its centres at El Bao and in the village itself.
Activity
A revived celebration performed on 6 January: several characters in costume go round the villages asking for the aguinaldo. The council considers it part of the municipality's ethnographic heritage and it is kept alive in places such as Tormaleo and Buso.
Monument
The parish church of Santa María, in San Antolín de Ibias, the capital of the concejo, is a single-nave temple with a barrel vault, a vaulted semicircular apse and a timber roof; its original structure dates from the 11th century, though it was remodeled between the 13th and 19th centuries. On the outside stands out the porch with slender colonnettes on a low wall, built of the black slate characteristic of the area, like the rest of the building. The façade is topped by a three-tiered bell-gable, with the door on the first tier, an oculus on the second and the bell chamber, crowned by a pediment, on the third; inside, a round arch separates the nave from the presbytery. Beside the Ibias river, the Ruta del Oro sets off from its churchyard, running along the Roman mining works of the valley.
Activity
A trail waymarked as the PR-AS 306 which sets out from San Antolín and takes in the channels, cuttings and spoil heaps of the Roman gold mines of the Ibias valley, passing through hamlets such as Cecos and Villamayor among vineyards and heaths.
Monument
A house museum in the hamlet of Sisterna devoted to the trade of the cunqueiros, the travelling turners who made beechwood tableware and spoke to one another in tixileiro, the guild jargon of south-western Asturias, now all but lost.
Monument
A centre at San Antolín devoted to the palloza, the dwelling with stone walls and a thatched roof shared by family and livestock, which in Asturias survives only in the far south-west, on the border with León and Galicia.
Food and drink
Terraced vines overlooking the River Ibias, among the westernmost and highest in Asturias, covered by the Cangas PDO; they sit alongside slate and chestnut groves and keep going native grape varieties that have all but disappeared.
Monument
The locals call it El Castillo: they are the ruined walls of the tower of the lordship of Marentes, a preserve of the house of Ron until its incorporation into Ibias in 1827. It looks out over the Salime reservoir and has been inventoried as Asturian cultural heritage since 2013.
Food and drink
An Asturian relative of the botillo, it is made at the pig slaughter with pork ribs and bones marinated with garlic and paprika, stuffed into a thick casing and smoked over the hearth; it is boiled at length and served hot and spicy, with cabbage and potatoes.