Eglise et Monastère de San Salvador and Eglise San Salvador
Plan this ride
Recorded distance
290 km
Riding-time estimate
4 h 11
Journey
Recorded itinerary
Distance and timing basis
Ordered leg totals agree within rounding. Stop distances are approximate sums of rounded legs. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
A 290 km round trip from Grado - roughly 4 h 11 in the saddle. The stops in between: La Foncalada, Santa Cristina de Lena, Eglise San Salvador and back through Santa Cristina de Lena. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,250 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Eglise et Monastère de San Salvador
Pilgrims have been trudging past these walls for about a thousand years, which makes a motorcycle look like a rather recent idea. The monastery of San Salvador de Cornellana stands beside the Narcea river in central Asturias, on the old inland route to Santiago that runs west from Oviedo through Grado and Salas. It was founded in the eleventh century, passed to the Benedictines of Cluny, and the church that survives keeps Romanesque bones under later remodelling. The bulk of the cloister and the old monastic buildings give the little village a weight that seems out of proportion to its size.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Eglise et Monastère de San Salvador is where the day begins. Next is La Foncalada.
2. La Foncalada
Oviedo has a tiny fountain that is older than almost everything else in the city, and it sits in a gap between two streets a few steps from the cathedral. La Foncalada, a little stone building with a gabled front and a pool inside, was built in the ninth century in the time of King Alfonso III, and it is the only surviving civil building of the Asturian pre-Romanesque style in the capital. Water from a spring still flows through it, and a pilgrim on the Camino Primitivo, the oldest of the routes to Santiago, passes by on the way through town. It is easy to walk past without noticing, which would be a pity.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
La Foncalada comes up about 34 km into the recorded legs. Next is Santa Cristina de Lena.
3. Santa Cristina de Lena
On a grassy knoll above the Lena valley, south of Oviedo, stands a tiny stone church that has watched over the main road between Asturias and Castile for more than a thousand years. Santa Cristina de Lena is one of the jewels of Asturian pre-Romanesque architecture, built in the ninth century when the little Christian kingdom of Asturias was the only part of Iberia outside Muslim rule. Its unusual plan, with a raised presbytery behind an arcade of carved arches, and its finely worked stone screens are unique. Together with Santa María del Naranco and San Miguel de Lillo in Oviedo, it is part of a World Heritage listing.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
about 72 km into the recorded legs you reach Santa Cristina de Lena. Next is Eglise San Salvador.
4. Eglise San Salvador
Tucked into a narrow valley a few kilometres south of Villaviciosa, the little church of San Salvador de Valdediós is one of the jewels of Asturian pre-Romanesque architecture. Locals call it El Conventín, the little convent, and it was consecrated at the end of the ninth century under King Alfonso III, during the period when the small Kingdom of Asturias was the only Christian state in Iberia not under Muslim rule. Its tall, narrow nave, round arches and delicate stone lattice windows give it a strangely intimate atmosphere.