Lagos de Covadonga

Two glacial lakes lie on a high pasture in the western massif of the Picos de Europa, ringed by limestone peaks and grazed by cows and horses right down to the waterline. The Lakes of Covadonga — Lake Enol and Lake Ercina, with a third, Bricial, that fills only during the snowmelt — sit at around 1,100 metres in the Asturian part of the range. When Spain created its first national park here in 1918, this upland was its original core; it now belongs to the much larger Picos de Europa National Park.

Enol is the larger of the two: about 750 metres long and 400 metres wide, at roughly 1,070 metres, and up to some 25 metres deep. It was left behind by a retreating glacier, whose terminal moraine still holds the water in like a plug. Ercina, slightly higher at about 1,108 metres, is a shallow lake, barely more than two metres deep, spreading over some eight hectares of meadow. Iron, manganese and mercury were mined at Buferrera, beside Ercina, until 1979. Below the lakes stands the sanctuary of Covadonga, the cave shrine that Spanish tradition links with the beginning of the Christian kingdoms of the north. Every 8 September a statue of the Virgin of Covadonga that rests on the bed of Lake Enol is raised from the water and carried in procession, and on 25 July the shepherds' festival brings regional dancing to its shore.

The road up from the sanctuary is one of the most famous climbs in cycling. It rises about 14 kilometres with long stretches of steep gradient, the hardest being La Huesera, and since its first appearance in the Vuelta a España in 1983 — won by Marino Lejarreta, with Bernard Hinault comparing it to Alpe d'Huez — it has ended stages of the race more than twenty times. In 2023 it also hosted the finale of the first La Vuelta Femenina.

Getting there

The lakes are in the municipality of Cangas de Onís, about 25 km from the town by road; the climb begins at Covadonga, some 10 km from Cangas along the AS-262. Arriondas, on the narrow-gauge railway along the Asturian coast, is the nearest station. León Airport is closest in a straight line but lies on the far side of the Cantabrian Mountains; Asturias Airport (OVD), about 90 km away in a straight line, is the usual approach.