Santiago de Peñalba Church

 

General Data

The village that is placed in the foothills of the Mountains Aquilanos keeps in its caserío (farmhouse) a very interesting example of the rural architecture from El Bierzo with stone buildings, clay roofs and austere wooden corridors. There was a monastery founded by San Genadio en el siglo X. It only remains the church that was built in the year 937 by the abad Salomón and is placed in the centre of the village. It is a humble temple according to the external view and a jewel of the Mozarabic Spanish style.

The visitor can get into the church through a nice door with a double horseshoe arch that rests on three marble columns. The horshoe arches prevail inside the building; one of them divides the only nave into two parts. Next to the village, in a rocky mountain that rises on the way to the Valley of Silence, you can visit the Cueva de San Genadio after a nice stroll. This is the place where the saint went into retreat when he was the bishop of Astorga. There are some interesting examples of decorative "wall paint" inside the cave, partially hidden by the plaster that was applied.

Templar Castle

City Map