Hotel Spa Ciudad de Astorga by PortBlue Boutique

In Astorga the Astures and Romans festivities are celebrated. Declared of Regional Tourist Interest they take place during the last weekend of July and include various acts of historical recreation highlighting the Roman circus, the reception of Caesar, the parade of victors, the Roman market and the Asturian-Roman cuisine days.

Likewise, we find the Napoleonic Route that recreates how the city of Astorga lived the Napoleonic Wars of late 1808, through different locations along the entire walled centre of Astorga, with the places of interest indicated to understand what the city went through at that time.

The city of Astorga has inherited a rich gastronomic tradition thanks to which you can taste unique dishes and typical specialities, without a doubt the star dish of this tradition, is the Cocido Maragato, without forgetting the “cecina de vaca” (beef jerky) that bears the Geographical indication “Cecina de León” or the famous mantecadas, the rich puff pastries, the traditional drinking hot chocolate or the merles. All these products and specialities can be tasted in the restaurants of Astorga, either in their traditional forms or in the form of evolved recipes more adapted to current tastes as would be the case of the five Michelin-starred restaurants that are less than an hour from Astorga: Restaurante Muna, Cocinados, Pablo, Lera and El Ermitaño.

Astorga belongs to the region of Maragatería, one of the most remarkable regions of the province of León, from where to make outstanding hiking routes, “senda maragatas”, literary routes, as well as bike routes or horseback riding excursions.

For cycling lovers, we find the Superbrevet Astúrica Augusta, a newly created cycling event departing from Astorga and based on the standards of Randounneur Moundiaux, that is, a route of 1200 km through the provinces of Castilla y León, to be completed in 90 hours, a very balanced route for everyone, which reaches its highest point in the port of Navacerrada at 1858 m.

A visit that you can not miss if you stay at Hotel Spa Ciudad de Astorga by PortBlue Boutique**** is the one to Las Médulas, a world heritage site, located in the region of El Bierzo. Considered the largest open-pit gold mine in the entire Roman Empire, it was an impressive engineering work to extract gold that considerably altered the environment of the area, resulting in an unusual landscape of reddish sands covered with chestnut and oak trees. Not forgetting the visit to the Petroglyphs of Maragatería, one of the few visible traces of the population of the area before the arrival of the Romans and the scars left in these lands by their gold exploitations.