Logbook · 7 places

What to see and do in Cabrales

What to see and do in Cabrales (Oriente, Asturias): 7 places across monuments, nature, activities and curiosities, with a photo and a Google Maps location.

1 Villages · 2 Nature · 3 Activities · 1 Curiosities

How far each place is from the centre of Cabrales

Cave of la Covaciella 2.4 km
Sotres 12 km

Towns near Cabrales

What to see in Onís 10 km · 5 places
What to see in Peñamellera Alta 11 km · 4 places
What to see in Llanes 14 km · 11 places
What to see in Tresviso 16 km · 5 places
What to see in Posada de Valdeón 19 km · 5 places
What to see in Amieva 20 km · 4 places
What to see in Peñamellera Baja 21 km · 5 places
What to see in Camaleño 22 km · 10 places

Spain › Principality of Asturias › Oriente › Cabrales

What to see and do in Cabrales

Cabrales
Village
Cabrales is a concejo of eastern Asturias integrated into the Picos de Europa national park, whose capital is Carreña. About 1,880 residents live spread across nine parishes, in a territory half of which rises over the Central Massif of the Picos de Europa, with peaks over 2,000 metres such as Torrecerredo, the highest point of the Cantabrian mountain range at 2,648 metres, or the Naranjo de Bulnes, whose west face drops vertically more than 600 metres. The economy has traditionally been pastoral, supported by its pastures, and from that milk comes the blue cheese of Cabrales, matured in mountain caves and internationally renowned; in recent decades tourism has been added as an economic driver. Its caves preserve engravings and paintings from the Upper Paleolithic.
Trail of el Cares
Activity
A path of about twelve kilometres hanging above the Cares gorge between Poncebos and Caín, already in León; it began as a service path for the canal that the Sociedad Eléctrica de Viesgo opened between 1915 and 1921 and was made into a trail around 1945. It is part of the Picos de Europa national park and is the busiest hiking route in the whole Cantabrian mountain range, with about 300,000 visitors a year; it runs at mid-height, carved into almost vertical walls of grey limestone, a stretch known as the divine gorge. It is usually walked there and back in a day, in 6 to 8 hours of walking; it presents no technical difficulty, but it is advisable to bring water and food, as it is an arid and hot place in summer with no resting points.
Picu Urriellu
Nature
Also known as the Naranjo de Bulnes, this limestone monolith of the central massif reaches 2,519 metres and presents on its west side a vertical wall of some 550 metres; Pedro Pidal and the shepherd Gregorio Pérez reached its summit in 1904.
Funicular of Bulnes
Activity
The Bulnes funicular links, through a tunnel beneath the Peña Maín, the hamlets of Poncebos and Bulnes, in the municipality of Cabrales, within the Picos de Europa. Bulnes, with barely fifty residents, had no road access and could only be reached on foot or on horseback through the gorge of the río Bulnes; to end this isolation, the Government of the Principality planned a funicular to overcome the difference in elevation between the two settlements, inaugurated in 2001. It has 2227 metres of single metre-gauge track and climbs a difference in elevation of 402 metres; the journey takes seven minutes. Residents use it free of charge, identifying themselves with a card issued by the town hall; it remains open every day of the year, as it is the only transport they have to come down from the village.
Cave of la Covaciella
Nature
The Covaciella cave opens in the Las Estazadas area, in the Asturian municipality of Cabrales. It was discovered in October 1994 when a blast went off during road works; after a forty-metre gallery, a chamber is reached with paintings of bison from the Magdalenian period, around 14,000 years old, magnificently preserved thanks to their late discovery. Since 2008 it has formed part of the group Cave of Altamira and Palaeolithic cave art of the Cantabrian coast, inscribed on the Unesco World Heritage list. Declared a Bien de Interés Cultural (Spain's highest level of heritage protection), it remains closed to the public so as not to disturb its delicate environmental balance; a reproduction can be seen at the Casa Bárcena in Carreña, the municipality's capital.
Cabrales Cheese Competition
Activity
It has been held in Arenas de Cabrales on the last Sunday in August since 1968: a jury chooses the best cheese of the denomination of origin and it is then auctioned, with figures that have earned it the Guinness record for the most expensive cheese sold at auction.
Sotres
Curiosity
Sotres, at 1,050 metres above sea level, is one of the highest villages in Asturias and sits in a valley surrounded by mountains, 19 kilometres from Carreña, the capital of the municipality of Cabrales, between the central and eastern massifs of the Picos de Europa; the most common access, from Arenas de Cabrales via Poncebos, is 11 kilometres of steep climbing. Its population is around a hundred residents -109 according to the INE's 2023 figures-, and in 2024 it received the Exemplary Village of Asturias Award. Livestock farming and the making of Cabrales cheese, with a recent family creamery awarded best cabrales at the cheese fair in Cangas de Onís, remain its main livelihood.