Cangas de Onís Travel Guide: Covadonga, Picos & Asturias

Cangas de Onís sits where the Sella river meets the Güeña in the eastern corner of Asturias, the green principality on Spain’s Atlantic north coast. It is roughly 70 kilometres east of Oviedo, an easy hour by road, and only about 25 kilometres inland from the Cantabrian sea at Ribadesella. That position — salmon river below, limestone walls of the Picos de Europa rising immediately to the south — is what gives the town its character. Slate roofs, cider houses and stone hórreos (raised granaries on mushroom-shaped staddle stones) sit under mountains that hold snow into early summer.

For Spaniards, though, Cangas de Onís is not simply a mountain town. It was the first capital of the Kingdom of Asturias, the small Christian realm founded by Pelayo after his victory at nearby Covadonga in the early eighth century — the event traditionally treated as the opening of the Reconquista. For roughly seventy years this was the seat of the Asturian kings, before the court moved to Cangas’ successor capitals and finally to Oviedo. Every Spanish schoolchild knows the name, and the town still carries that weight lightly: a handful of streets, a famous bridge, and a shrine in a cave a few kilometres up the valley that draws pilgrims from across the country.

What to see in Cangas de Onís

• Puente Romano — The town’s emblem, a steep single-span bridge arching over the Sella. Despite the name it is medieval rather than Roman, and from its centre hangs a replica of the Cruz de la Victoria, the cross that became the symbol of Asturias. Photograph it from the riverbank downstream, where the arch and its reflection close into a full circle.
• Santa Cueva de Covadonga — A shrine set inside a cave in a sheer cliff face, about ten kilometres up the valley. It holds the image of the Virgin known affectionately as La Santina, patron of Asturias, and the tomb attributed to Pelayo. A waterfall drops from beneath the cave into a pool below.
• Basílica de Santa María la Real de Covadonga — The neo-Romanesque basilica built in pink limestone at the turn of the twentieth century, its twin towers set against forested slopes. The scale is deliberately grand; the setting does most of the work.
• Lagos de Covadonga — Two glacial lakes, Enol and Ercina, on a high pasture at around 1,100 metres above the sanctuary. Cattle and Asturian mountain horses graze the shoreline, cloud pours over the ridges, and short waymarked walks link the two.
• Picos de Europa National Park — Declared in 1918 as Spain’s first national park, originally under the name Montaña de Covadonga. Cangas is one of its principal gateways, and even a short drive south delivers gorges, beech woods and limestone massifs.
• Capilla de Santa Cruz — A modest chapel on the edge of town, founded in the eighth century and rebuilt after the Civil War, built directly over a Neolithic dolmen whose engraved stones are still visible inside. It is one of the more startling layerings of prehistory and Christianity in northern Spain.
• Iglesia de Nuestra Señora de la Asunción — The parish church in the centre, also rebuilt in the twentieth century, a useful orientation point and the start of most walks through the old streets.
• The Sella river — Below the bridge the Sella runs clear and fast. It is one of Spain’s celebrated salmon rivers and the country’s best-known canoe descent, run each summer between Arriondas and Ribadesella just downstream.

What to eat in Cangas de Onís

Asturian cooking is mountain food built for wet weather, and Cangas is a good place to meet it. The regional standard-bearer is fabada asturiana, a slow-cooked stew of large white faba beans with chorizo, morcilla and pork shoulder; pote asturiano is its greener cousin, thickened with cabbage and potato. Cachopo — two veal escalopes sandwiching ham and cheese, breaded and fried — is enormous and usually shared. Along the river you will also find Sella salmon in season and trout cooked simply with cured ham.

Cheese is the local obsession. Cabrales, the fierce blue matured in mountain caves, comes from the neighbouring valley, while Gamonéu is made in the high pastures of Cangas de Onís and Onís themselves — lightly smoked, semi-blue, and harder to find outside Asturias. Drink cider: Asturian sidra is still and sharp, poured from a height in a long thin stream (escanciar) to aerate it, and served a couple of fingers at a time. Finish with arroz con leche caramelised under a crust of burnt sugar, casadíelles (fried pastries filled with walnut), or frixuelos, the Asturian pancake.

Shopping & crafts

The weekly market fills the streets near the bridge with cheese, cider, honey, chorizo and beans sold by the producers themselves — the most rewarding shopping in town. Look also for madreñas, the three-pegged wooden clogs once worn over shoes in the mud and now sold as folk craft, and for miniature Cruz de la Victoria pieces in silver and enamel. Vacuum-packed Cabrales and Gamonéu travel well; loose cheese generally does not.

Best time to visit

Late spring through early autumn is the reliable window, when the high pastures are open, the lakes road is running and the days are long. Summer brings the warmest weather and the busiest sanctuary, particularly around the feast of La Santina and the Sella canoe descent, both fixtures of the Asturian calendar. September and early October are arguably the sweet spot: green hillsides, fewer visitors, and the first colour in the beech woods. Winter is quiet and atmospheric but the mountain roads can close, and this is one of the wettest corners of Spain in any season.

Good to know

• In peak periods private cars are barred from the road up to the Lagos de Covadonga and access is by shuttle bus from the valley. Check the day’s arrangements before setting out.
• Weather in the Picos changes fast and the lakes are often in cloud when the town is clear. Carry a waterproof layer even in August.
• Cider is ordered by the bottle rather than the glass and poured for you by the waiter — drink each measure straight down rather than sipping it.
• The old quarter is compact and walkable, but Covadonga, the lakes and the surrounding valleys need transport; most visitors base themselves in Cangas or Arriondas.
• Asturias is officially bilingual in practice — you will see Asturian (bable) on signs alongside Spanish. English is spoken in hotels but less so in village cider houses.

Visiting Cangas de Onís with Palace Tours

Cangas de Onís and the Covadonga sanctuary are a classic excursion on the luxury train journeys that trace Spain’s northern coast, where the day’s sightseeing is done by coach from the railhead while the train waits. Palace Tours arranges these journeys with private guiding, all excursions and full board included. To plan a trip, call 1-800-724-5120 (US/Canada), WhatsApp +1-786-408-0610, or dial +1-609-580-1372 from outside North America.