Valle del silencio

"El Valle del Silencio" (The Silence Valley) is situated in the "Montes Aquilanos" in León. It has a summit of 2000m and it has an unforgettable landscape.

If you close your eyes there, you will feel something incredible, a great sensation of peace. All you can hear is silence. Even the sound of a butterfly which live in this place is homely.

The legend tells that a roman soldier fell in love with a girl who lived near to the valley, however, this soldier wasn't loved in return because the girl loved another man. So he abducted them both, he killed the man and the girl achieved to escape, leaving him a note. This note tells that she never could love him because he wouldn′t be able to understand the beauty of this valley and of its friendly and magic villages.

Also, there are other legends. For example that a man became a hermit because he wanted to dedicate his life to deliberate in one of the caves that this dale has, but one day, this man needed silence so shouted to the mountain: "Silence!" and suddenly all remained silence, a silence which keeps in nowadays.

In front of this valley is Peñalba de Santiago, a small village situated 23km from Ponferrada. This place is small but spectacular, its streets are short and steep, almost all the village is covered by ranches intertwined where the light of the bright sun creeps in.

The people of this village are gentle and sympathetic, and if they see you they will always greet you. The best of the village is the church, which is the single rest of the Mozarabic art and it was built by Salomon in 937, because of this, the village was declared Historic and Artistic Nacional Entity.

We recommend everybody to visit this wonder of León, you have to be there to understand it.

El Bosque de las Hadas

"El Bosque de las Hadas" (The Fairies Forest) is a place situated in the surroundings of León, formally named "El Faedo", in a village named "Ciñera".

This place has a track for you to walk through the forest so you can see the river missing no detail.

The best moment to visit it is in winter, because the trees are covered with snow and the river flow grows making a wonderful sight.

This forest isn't named "El Bosque de las Hadas" by luck, his remembrance to a fairy tale forest is quite remarkable, besides, this place is the best preserved forest in all the country.

If you want to see a wonder place, you should visit this one.

Las Hoces de Vegacervera, las Hoces de Valdeteja and the Cola de Caballo waterfall

The “hoces” are canyons formed because of the prolongued erosion of a river in his constant flow trough a particular zone.

Placed in the municipal term of Cármenes, 30 km north of the city of León, there are the “Hoces of Vegacervera”, a wonderful natural formacion created by the erosion.

The Torio river has taked charge of erode the limestone until there were two mountains with a narrow valley between them.

The landscape is outstanding, the walls of the valley's sides are almost vertical and in them are plenty of caves.

They also are common destination for mountaineers and climbing amateurs because the verticality of their walls and the zones of diverse dificulty, which allow all kinds of climbers to enjoy their hobby.

Twin to the Vegacervera ones, the “Hoces de Valdeteja” are placed in the municipal term of Nocedo de Curueño, they're much less known that their sisters though in the surroundings are located the hermitage of San Froilán, León's patron, and one of the prime wonders of the province of León, the waterfall known by the name of “Cola de Caballo”.

In the outskirts of the village of Valdorria is located the hermitage of the León's patron, San Froilán.

A few meters of the road, the Valdorria river falls a large gap between four walls of limestone, to join later with the Curueño river, this jump results in the fall known as “Cola de Caballo” (Horse's tail).

From here we pretend to interest anyone who reads us to visit this wonderful places in the north of the León province.

Las Cuevas de Valporquero

Las Cuevas de Valporquero, are situated in a town called Valporquero, at the north of León, at 1386 metres of altitude. The caves were formed because there were a strim which water slipped between the pores of the limestone, so this built new underground caves because of erosion one million years ago. The limestones take different forms, creating a Virgin with a kid or Pisa’s Tower, which are surprising for the people who visit the cave.

Virgin with the child.

Pisa’s Tower

Inside the cave, there are many different rooms in which you can see too much figures built by the water and erosion during all these years. You can see at least four of these rooms by the internet. These rooms are called:

Sala Pequeñas Maravillas

Sala Gran Rotonda

Sala Gran Rotonda (seen from Sala del cementerio)

Sala Maravillas

You can visit Las Cuevas de Valporquero in any Season, because each one has different beautiful Rights that you will enjoy. If you preffer summer, you will have a lot of Sun and the sights are going to be really “green” because the mountains are flowering.

In other case if you preffer winter you will see that the mountains are snowed, so you will be able to play over the caves with your friends.

Anyway, we want to invite all of you to visit our city and surroundings because it has a lot of beautiful things on the nature that we think you will like.