Day: April 6, 2025

Our drive today was about two hours. Before leaving Corias we were able to look into the church. It was open because they were preparing for Mass. The church is a part of the monastery and so it’s built into the Parador building.

About half way through our drive we saw a sign for the caves of Peña de Candamo. According to Google they have great prehistoric art. Unfortunately the visitors center was closed and you can only enter the caves on a tour.

At the Parador of Cangas de Onis we had our welcome drinks, played some cards, and then went for a walk about two miles up the river to the actual town of Cangas de Onis, where we stopped for coffee.

Cangas de Onis has a magnificent Roman Bridge. We crossed it and walked back to the Parador on the other side of the river.

We had a great Parador dinner.

Today we had a four hour drive from the Parador de Santo Estevo in Galicia to the Para de Corias in Asturias. We saw a lot of beautiful and interesting scenery along the way. The weather varied from pouring rain to sun.

A lot of the road today was windy, narrow, and mountainous. About 20 minutes after leaving we stopped at this great vista point.

Later we saw a sign for a Roman tunnel and had to check it out. According to this website the Romans built the tunnel in the second century A.D. to get at the gold brought down by the Sil River.

Our next stop was Las Medulas, an area where the Romans used water to wash away an enormous area of mountains to get the gold out of the soil. They built extensive tunnels then filled them with water at high pressure and collapsed the mountains.

After stopping for groceries, we finally arrived at the Parador of Corias. The monastery’s size is the third largest in Spain. A sign in the lobby says that the Oseira Monastery that we visited yesterday is the largest.

The Corias monastery has beautiful big hallways and rooms. The library is gorgeous.

We had a picnic dinner in the room and played cards.