Logbook · 5 places

What to see and do in Salas

What to see and do in Salas (Oviedo, Asturias): 5 places across monuments, nature, activities and curiosities, with a photo and a Google Maps location.

1 Villages · 3 Monuments · 1 Nature

How far each place is from the centre of Salas

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Spain › Principality of Asturias › Oviedo › Salas

What to see and do in Salas

Salas
Village
Salas is a municipality in west-central Asturias, known as the Gateway to the West, with 4,771 inhabitants spread between the capital town and the settlements of Cornellana, in the Narcea river plain near its confluence with the Nonaya, and La Espina, set at a strategic crossroads from which roads descend to Tineo, Pola de Allande or Cangas del Narcea, or to the coast via the Esva valley. The terrain, of slate and quartzite with patches of granite, forms a medium-mountain landscape crossed by the Narcea river. Salas received its founding charter in 1277, and the Camino Primitivo passes through its territory, running past the monastery of San Salvador de Cornellana, founded in 1024. In the church of San Martín lies the inquisitor Valdés Salas, in a tomb by Pompeyo Leoni.
Collegiate church of Santa María la Mayor of Salas
Monument
A church founded by the Valdés-Salas family in the first half of the 16th century, with a single nave to which later renovations added chapels; the apse holds two 17th-century reredoses, the main one from the Valladolid school with biblical scenes, and another in the Malleza chapel, the work of Pedro Sánchez de Agrela and Luis Fernández de la Vega. Its principal piece is the alabaster mausoleum of Fernando de Valdés Salas, inquisitor general and founder of the University of Oviedo, carved between 1576 and 1582 by the Italian Pompeyo Leoni, who worked for Philip II at El Escorial. It has three tiers: the Valdés family's biography and coat of arms on the lower one, the archbishop praying between Charity and Hope on the middle one, and Faith defeating Heresy on the upper one. It is the greatest piece of Asturian funerary Renaissance art.
Monastery of San Salvador de Cornellana
Monument
The monastery of San Salvador stands in Cornellana, in the concejo of Salas, at the confluence of the Narcea and Nonaya rivers; listed as a Monumento Nacional (a Spanish heritage-protection designation) since 1931 and included in 2015 in Unesco's extension of the Way of St James. Founded in 1024 through a donation by the Infanta Cristina, who gave properties and a church built beside her already deceased husband, the monastery was gradually broken up among the heirs until her great-grandson Suero Vermúdez and his wife Enderquina reunited the estate and, in 1122, handed it over to the Congregation of Cluny, beginning the construction of its Benedictine cloister. In the Romanesque church, the doorway stands out for its relief of the she-bear that, according to legend, suckled the infanta; the Baroque ensemble was built in the 18th century.
Tomb of Fernando de Valdés Salas
Monument
The alabaster tomb of Fernando de Valdés y Salas was carved between 1576 and 1582 on commission from the Duke of Alba, the work of the mannerist sculptor Pompeo Leoni, and is kept in the Colegiata de Santa María la Mayor de Salas, built by the inquisitor's parents, to which his body was moved after his death in Madrid in 1568. Valdés y Salas, born in Salas in 1483, was Inquisitor General between 1547 and 1566, president of the Consejo de Castilla and author of one of the most notorious indexes of prohibited books of his time; he also led the trial against Archbishop Bartolomé de Carranza. A patron of culture, he founded the Colegio de San Pelayo in Salamanca and promoted the creation of the University of Oviedo, which did not begin its activities until 1608, forty years after his death.
Megalithic necropolis of Penausén
Nature
In the village of Carrales one of the most notable megalithic stations of west-central Asturias is preserved, with burial tumuli aligned along the ridge; from it visual contact is kept with the dolmen of Merillés, to the south.