Protected areas
Three essential places to visit in Riaño Mountain.
Between peaks and gorges, the Leonese slope unfolds its green mantle, inviting you to explore its geological secrets and the serenity of its villages.
The Leonese side of the Picos de Europa National Park, a nature sanctuary.
The Leonese side of the Picos de Europa National Park is an idyllic destination for nature lovers and hikers . With its incredible mountain scenery, its cozy villages and its history, this slope offers an unforgettable experience for all visitors.
Water and ice have been the great shapers of the landscape creating a very diverse orography, among which we can highlight the Beyos Gorge and the Cares Gorge, two of the most spectacular gorges in Spain or some of the deepest chasms in the world, where speleologists from all over the world come to visit.
Riaño Mountain and Mampodre Regional Park, a natural and cultural treasure.
In the Montaña de Riaño y Mampodre Regional Park, human activity has contributed to structure a unique landscape that is configured from the center of the villages to the surrounding areas as cultivated areas and meadows, giving rise to traditional and subsistence agriculture.
This protected area is much more than landscapes and steep slopes. There are centuries of stories written in the villages, in the valleys, in the churches, in the huts of the ports and in its paths, but also in its people who, over the centuries, have made their lives compatible with the conservation of the space.
As in the Picos de Europa National Park, ice and water, through its three river basins, Cea, Esla and Porma, have been the great shapers of the landscapes and mountainous areas such as Mampodre, where the bearded vulture, which is being reintroduced in the area, chooses these steep peaks as its usual flying place.
The uniqueness of this area has given rise to reserved and protected areas such as the Hormas forest, the Lillo pine forest, the Crémenes Sabinar or the Mampodre glaciers, areas that accumulate a legacy of history and customs, of tradition and ways of life that have made it possible to maintain and conserve these areas.
Beech and holly trees intermingle with oaks and yews, the latter being loaded with symbolism since the time of the first Celtic peoples who inhabited these lands.
Some of the values that justify this declaration of protected area are its high botanical, zoological, geological, geomorphological and landscape interest, which gives rise to protection figures for birds, sites of community interest, Recovery Plan for the Brown Bear, Brown Bear Zone, and the protection of the park's flora and fauna. n del Oso Pardo, Special Protection Zone for Cantabrian capercaillie, wetlands such as Lake Isoba (Puebla de Lillo) or Pozo Butrero (LLánaves de la Reina) or Plant Specimens of Singular Relevance such as the Valdosín Beech and the Sestil de la Mata Oak, among others.
This protected area has the beech forests of Cuesta Fría and Asotín, declared World Heritage Sites, which are an excellent example of the ecosystems of the Atlantic forest, and are also home to two of Spain's most legendary animal species, the Iberian wolf and the brown bear, as well as other no less iconic species such as roe deer and chamois.They are also home to two of the most legendary animal species in Spain, the Iberian wolf and the brown bear, as well as other no less iconic species such as roe deer and chamois. The fauna richness of this protected area can be described as exceptional, being one of the reasons for this exceptionality, its humanized landscape, by a historical agro-livestock use, which has created a mosaic of forest, scrubland and pasture ideal for wildlife.
Although these beech forests offer unforgettable moments throughout the year, it is during the months of October and November when they are at their most spectacular, as the beech trees are adorned with the suggestive colors of autumn.
A protected area characterized by a remarkable cultural value and popular architecture, such as the Corona mountain located in Posada de Valdeón, where culture and nature are intertwined with history. The Corona mountain is the only native forest of linden trees in Europe and where the Gothic tradition tells that Pelayo was raised on his shield and crowned as king in whose place was erected a chapel that would be dedicated to the Virgen de la Corona.
All this gives rise to a myriad of points of interest that will motivate all kinds of visitors and tourists to know and understand the destination, such as the Mirador del Tombo, the Chorco de los Lobos, the Via Ferrata de Valdeón or the Félix Martino School Museum in Soto de Sajambre.
The Picos de Europa National Park also has other protected areas such as Special Protection Areas for Birds (SPAs), Sites of Community Interest (SCIs) and Biosphere Reserves, which shows the natural and scenic quality of the territory.
Argüellos Biosphere Reserve, a secret paradise.
Within the tourist destination of Riaño Mountain and in the heart of the Cantabrian Mountains is the Argüellos Biosphere Reserve, which together with the Picos de Europa Biosphere Reserve are two of the seven Biosphere Reserves in the province of León.
The municipality of Valdelugueros belongs to this Biosphere Reserve, occupying the headwaters of the Curueño River, a trout river that gives rise to gorges and magical landscapes and gives the municipality geological and geomorphological features of great beauty.gologic and geomorphologic features of unquestionable value, as well as a great biodiversity, forming as a whole one of the most important tourist attractions of the tourist destination . Valdelugueros is an example of a Cantabrian mountain ecosystem, in which the scarce resources have been wisely used by the population since centuries ago, contributing to maintain, conserve and create unique and singular landscapes of great natural and ecological value.
The beauty is latent in these landscapes where the water lives with the forests, where the fauna is integrated with the flora and where to enjoy at the same time that to know.
The rainwater that the clouds discharge on the southern slopes of the Cantabrian Mountains ends up in the Curueño riverbed, creating subway routes and hidden treasures, such as the Llamazares Cave (Llamazares), which shows a succession of galleries in the more than 1,000 meters of the river.The cave shows a succession of galleries in the more than 700 meters enabled for the visit in which you can see all kinds of cavities and impossible formations that water has been modeling in thousands of years of incessant work on the limestone rocks.
The municipality of Valdelugueros inherits a great Roman legacy, translated into Roman roads and numerous bridges that cross the Curueño River where a Roman road used to pass, known today as the Vegarada road.
The use of the potential of the area such as leisure, rural and nature tourism, gastronomy and handicrafts represent activities that allow economic development without undermining the ecological potential of the Reserve.
A territory that makes everyone who discovers this protected area fall in love with it, like the New York actor Viggo Mortensen, who discovered the village of Valdeteja in the preparation of his character Diego Alatriste y Tenorio and has been linked to the province of León ever since.
Your next destination: Los Argüellos Biosphere Reserve!