Peñamellera Baja, Asturias: municipality guide

Peñamellera Baja is a municipality in eastern Asturias (officially El Valle Baju de Peñamellera in Asturian) with 1,195 inhabitants on 83.85 km². Its capital is Panes, a town on the banks of the river Deva, at the foot of the Picos de Europa and right on the border with Cantabria.

Things to see in Peñamellera Baja

The capital, Panes, is the heart of the municipality: a mountain town crossed by the river Deva, one of the great salmon rivers of northern Spain, with historically famous fishing beats. The modern bridge over the Deva is one of the town’s most recognisable sights.

Aerial view of Panes, capital of the municipality of Peñamellera Baja, in the Deva valley. — Photo: Wikimedia Commons / Luis Fermín Turiel Peredo (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Just outside Panes lies the cave of La Loja, with Magdalenian rock art, and on the road towards Potes stand the ruins of the church of San Juan de Ciliergo, late Romanesque. In San Esteban, declared Exemplary Village of Asturias in 1990, the San Esteban viewpoint offers one of the widest panoramas of the Picos de Europa; the village also gives its name to the Peñamellera cheese made by its cooperative.

The municipality shares with its western neighbour the Sierra del Cuera, a Protected Landscape of beech woods and meadows between the coast and the interior. Its civil heritage is led by the palace of La Cajiga in Abándames (17th century, of the Mier family), the palace of San Román in Panes, and the Indiano houses scattered through Panes, Merodio, Abándames and Buelles, the legacy of emigrants who made their fortune in the Americas. The municipality is divided into seven parishes.

Bridge over the river Deva in Panes, Peñamellera Baja. — Photo: Wikimedia Commons / McBodes (CC BY 3.0)

Panes is crossed by the Ruta Vadiniense, a historic pilgrimage route. It is not an official Camino de Santiago, but its age-old layout makes it one of the municipality’s most time-honoured itineraries.

Getting there

The N-621 (León–Potes–Panes–Unquera) is the municipality’s main road and connects it with Cantabria through the La Hermida gorge. At Unquera it meets the N-634 and the narrow-gauge commuter line (the former FEVE) between Santander and Oviedo.

Map of the municipality of Peñamellera Baja: the capital, in gold. Data © OpenStreetMap (ODbL).

Festivals and gastronomy

The main festival in Panes is San Cipriano (September), alongside San Roque (16 August) and San Isidro (15 May). The last Saturday of July brings the artisan cheese and Picos de Europa crafts fair, July sees the Jira del paisano in the Cuera, and on 8 September Cimiano honours Nuestra Señora de Espioña. At the table, cheese rules: Peñamellera cheese from the San Esteban cooperative, Monje cheese from Panes and chivita cheese from Buelles, not forgetting Deva salmon.