The Nalón Valley: Authentic Asturias

The Nalón Valley — Langreo, San Martín del Rey Aurelio, Laviana, Sobrescobio, and Caso — brings together mining and mountains: the MUMI in El Entrego, the mining train of the Ecomuseo Minero Valle de Samuño, the Casa Natal de Palacio Valdés in Laviana, and Redes Natural Park, a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve since 2001, with the Ruta del Alba, about 14 kilometres round trip.

There's an Asturias that doesn't fit on a beach postcard: the mining valleys, where coal shaped the landscape and the mountains start right where the pit headframes end. The Nalón Valley — Langreo, San Martín del Rey Aurelio, Laviana, Sobrescobio and Caso — is that green, deep, uncrowded Asturias. A region worth staying in: mining country on one side, and half an hour away, the beech woods of a Biosphere Reserve. From the mine to the mountain, without doubling back.

Going down the mine: the MUMI and the Samuño train

The Museo de la Minería y de la Industria (MUMI) — the Mining and Industry Museum — in El Entrego is the best way into the valley's past. It's not a museum behind glass: you go down into a simulated mine inside a real cage, the kind that carried thousands of men into the dark for a century. General admission is around €9.50 (about €6 for ages 4 to 12); check the opening hours before you go, since it's closed Mondays and changes by season.

For the fuller experience, head up to Langreo, to the Ecomuseo Minero Valle de Samuño. From the El Cadavíu station, a mining train runs into the valley to the mouth of the San Luis pit; the visit takes about two hours and booking is required (984 08 22 15). It's rare to leave without suddenly understanding what it meant to make a living from this.

Laviana, the village Palacio Valdés wouldn't let go of

Laviana is novel country in the literal sense. Armando Palacio Valdés was born here in 1853, and his Casa Natal — an 18th-century manor house in Entralgo, now a visitor centre — reconstructs the world he wrote about: rural life, the first coal pits, and the writer's own work share its rooms.

The key is his novel La aldea perdida (1903) — The Lost Village — set in these same valleys and read as one of the most explicit anti-industrial statements in Spanish literature: the rural idyll broken by the arrival of the mine. Walking Laviana with that book in mind helps make sense of the mix of hurt and pride running through the whole region.

From the mine to the mountain: Redes and the Ruta del Alba

Upstream, the valley changes colour. Sobrescobio and Caso make up Redes Natural Park, a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve since 2001: beech, oak and chestnut woods where brown bears and capercaillie still live. Rioseco, the main town of Sobrescobio, is a quiet, stone-built base to walk out from.

The benchmark route is the Ruta del Alba, which starts in Soto de Agues. A Natural Monument since 2001, it climbs the Alba river gorge past waterfalls and vertical rock walls: about 14 kilometres round trip, low difficulty and largely on track, to walk without hurry, even with the family. The Nalón itself rises higher up, at the Fuente La Nalona, around 1,460 metres, by the Tarna mountain pass.

The Senda del Oso, a short drive away

For a different kind of day, cross into the neighbouring Trubia valley. The Senda del Oso is a greenway of more than 30 kilometres, laid over an old mining railway that, until the mid-1960s, carried ore down from the mines of Quirós and Teverga to the industry in Trubia. Today it's walked or cycled through lit tunnels, restored bridges and gorges, with almost no elevation gain.

Its signature stop is the bear enclosure right by the path, a symbol of the Cantabrian brown bear's recovery, where you can see the animals up close. From the Nalón Valley it's about an hour by car: a good plan for a full day out.

The river turned into a festival: the Descenso del Nalón

If you're travelling in late August, don't miss the Descenso Folklórico del Nalón, a festival of National Tourist Interest. The 57th edition is held on Saturday 22 August 2026 in Pola de Laviana: dozens of boats, rafts and floating contraptions come down the river, elaborately decorated, with a mix of humour, music and local satire.

Since 2024 the event has been rounded out by the Regodón, a music festival with concerts, food trucks and free admission. It's the day the whole valley takes to the river and the street; it's worth planning ahead, since Laviana fills up.

Eating in the valley: from Casín cheese to suspiros

The food in the Nalón leaves a mark. Casín cheese — a Protected Designation of Origin made in Caso, Sobrescobio and Piloña — is one of the oldest in Spain: intense, hand-kneaded, for palates that like strong flavours. Around it revolve pitu de caleya (free-range chicken), kid, stuffed onions, fabada, and, of course, cider poured from a height.

For dessert, tradition rules: casadielles de nuez (walnut-filled pastries), frixuelos (Asturian crêpes), rice pudding, and suspiros del Nalón, lard-and-butter pastries made in Campo de Caso. Eating here isn't a formality between sights; it's part of the trip.