Villablino

The morning shift change still echoes through Villablino at 07.30, though the headframes stopped turning years ago. Locals in work coats queue for coffee and thick slices of toast rubbed with tomato and a whisper of garlic. It tastes of altitude—bread takes longer to rise at a thousand metres—and of a valley that once earned its living from what lay beneath, not above, the ground.

Slate Roofs and Headframes

Villablino is the accidental capital of the Laciana valley, a long trough wedged between the Cantabrian cordillera and the province of León. The town’s grid arrived with coal in the early twentieth century; rows of stone cottages with slate roofs climb the southern slope like terracing on a steep vineyard. Some are freshly painted, others still sooty at the edges, and the mix gives the place an unvarnished honesty that camera-toting day-trippers sometimes miss. They come hunting for a postcard, find a working town, and leave before the coffee cools.

Park on Avenida de Asturias—free, no meters—and walk downhill past the miners’ clinic, now a health centre, to the church of San Miguel. The tower is square and plain, more civic than celestial, but the steps are a natural meeting point. Pensioners judge passing cars by the sound of their engines; everyone else checks the sky. Cloud rolling over the Puerto de Leitariegos means rain in twenty minutes, snow in winter.

Museum Pieces and Mountain Pastures

Five minutes away, the Museo de Laciana occupies a 1950s bathhouse. Admission is three euros, exact coins preferred, and the reward is a concise lesson in why this valley feels different from the meseta further south. Fossil ferns, carbide lamps and a pay envelope from 1986 explain the geology and the politics; upstairs, a reconstructed braña—high-summer shepherd hut—shows how people escaped the heat long before ski lifts were bolted to the hills. Ask for the English leaflet at reception; if the volunteer on duty is Pilar, you’ll get it, plus directions to the nearest working hut where cheese still drips from hanging cloth bags.

The brañas are Villablino’s open-air annex. From the upper end of town a paved lane snakes 8 km to Braña de Lumajo, gaining 400 m of altitude. Leave the car at the barrier (winter gates close when snow arrives) and continue on foot. Stone cabins with shaggy thatch hunker among cow pastures; the air smells of hawthorn and wet granite. In June the meadows are loud with cowbells; by October only the echo of your own bootsteps remains. The round-trip walk is 6 km, easy by UK standards, but carry a waterproof—the same clouds that look decorative from the valley floor turn vicious within the hour.

Ski Lifts and Boggy Boots

Snow transforms the economics completely. The Leitariegos ski station, 25 minutes up the AS-213, opens fifteen pistes served by four chairlifts. A day pass costs 34 € mid-week, ten euros less than the Sierra Nevada, and queues rarely exceed five minutes. The runs are north-facing and hold powder longer than you’d expect for 42 km from the Atlantic, but the vertical is modest—250 m—so experts treat it as a sharpening stone, not a proving ground. Equipment hire on site is adequate; if you’re particular, rent in León city on the drive up.

Back in the valley, Villablino becomes a staging post for bigger peaks. Cueto de Arbás (1,856 m) starts at the end of a forestry track 12 km west of town. The path climbs through abandoned chestnut terraces, then breaks onto open limestone. On a clear day you can pick out the Picos de Europa 60 km away; on a murky one the cairns disappear into cloud after the first kilometre and navigation is strictly GPS. Allow five hours return, more if the meadows are boggy—Galician cows have right of way and they’re in no hurry.

Calories for Cold Days

Appetite arrives early at altitude. Locals breakfast on café con leche and churros at Cafetería Puerto, opposite the football ground; tourists expecting a full English leave disappointed. Mid-morning, follow the smell of woodsmoke to Bar Sardon in the同名 hamlet 4 km uphill. Octopus here is briefly boiled, snipped with scissors, then dusted with pimentón dulce—mild enough for timid palates—and served on a wooden platter with cachelos (boiled potatoes). Pair it with a glass of local cider poured from shoulder height; the foam is half the pleasure.

Lunch is the main event. Restaurante La Nueva Era occupies a former mining canteen; whitewashed walls still carry black-and-white photographs of helmeted crews. The menu del día runs to 14 € and might open with cocido montañés, a hefty stew of white beans, cabbage and pork belly that demands a siesta afterwards. If that sounds like civil engineering on a plate, order cecina instead—air-cured beef sliced tissue-thin, closer to bresaola than jamón and easier on the waistband. Vegetarians get roasted piquillo peppers stuffed with mushroom rice; demand is low so the kitchen needs an hour’s notice.

Evenings are quiet. Spanish visitors crowd the bars during August fiestas, but in May or October you’ll share the pavement with quarry lorries and the occasional hunting dog. Shop early if you’re self-catering: the Supermercado El Arbol shuts at 20.00 and stocks UHT milk, tinned beans and little else that resembles British staples. Bring teabags, or embrace the local habit of ending meals with herbal infusion—oregano or chamomile, free with the bill.

Getting There, Getting Out

The closest airports with UK flights are León (1 h 40 min) and Asturias (1 h 50 min); both involve a car because public transport thins to a trickle beyond Ponferrada. Hire a vehicle with decent ground clearance—forest tracks to trailheads are graded but potholed—and fill the tank before the climb; the last 24-hour garage is in La Pola de Gordón. In winter carry snow chains; the N-630 is cleared first, the side valleys second, and the ski road only when the resort needs customers.

Stay in the village if you want Wi-Fi that works and a choice of restaurants. Hotel Vía de la Plata has refurbished rooms at 55 € double B&B; walls are thin, but the heating is industrial-strength. Up the valley, stone cottages rent for 70–90 € a night through Laciana Rural. Firewood is included; mobile signal isn’t. Book weekdays outside August and you can usually negotiate three nights for the price of two—owners prefer guaranteed occupancy to weekend surges.

Leave time for the drive out. The AS-213 crests the Puerto de Leitariegos at 1,525 m, then corkscrews down into Asturias through beech forest the colour of burnt sugar in late October. Pull over at the mirador just below the pass: the view back into León is a reminder that Spain still keeps pockets where industry and wilderness overlap, and Villablino sits right on the join. It isn’t pretty in the conventional sense, but it is alive, and that counts for more than another souvenir tea towel.