Liébana - Picos de Europa
Potes is the capital of Liébana, its administragive centre and main tourist attraction. From a historic point of view it dates from the time of repopulation carried out by Alfonso the First in the 8th-c. It was at that time under the jurisdiction of the Monastery of Santo Toribio. Later on in the Middle Ages, the dominion of the Marquises of Santillana held sway over the town. This was the time of the construction of the "Torre del Infantado", whose military appearance belies the fact that it is a really a 15th-c palace, built in order to demonstrate the might and power of its owners, the Marquises of Santillana. The former Parish church was also built in the 15th-c but today, unfortunately, it is used as a store.
During the 17th-c, a community of Dominican monks came and settled in the town and set about the construction of the practically disappeared Monastery of San Raimundo. All that remains today are the austere cloisters.
One excursion from Potes takes us to the very heart of the Picos de Europa. Approximately 5 km from the capital we take a turn-off to the left leading to the important Monastery of Santo Toribio de Liébana. It was founded in the 8th-c during the reign of King Alfonso I, although it is thought to have existed several centuries before, and its creation, under the name of San Martín de Turieno, is said to have been by Santo Toribio, the Bishop of Astorga. This very saint transferred the "Lignum Crucis" -the largest existing relic of the Cross- to the monastery.
Towards the end of the 8th-c the Beatus of Liébana wrote his famous "Commentaries on the Apocalypse" here, which two centuries later, would be profusely miniatured by the monks at many other Spanish monasteries. The most interesting part of the monastery is its church. This Gothic construction was clearly built over earlier Romanesque and pre-Romanesque constructions, as can be appreciated by excavation work and the remains of entrance doorways that it contains. At the beginning of the 18th-c the building was completed with the construction of the Baroque "Lignum Crucis" Chapel.
In the area around the monastery can be found a collection of hermitages that go to form one of the most outstanding hermitical groups of its kind in Spain.
We eventually arrive al Fuente Dé, which has a Parador and a cable car that goes right up to the top of the central massif of the Picos de Europa. The view from El Cable viewpoint is absolutely outstanding, and behing us stand Peña Vieja and El Pico Tesorero, the two most visited peaks, due, in part, to their easy access.
