Portal de Turismo de Castilla y León

Welcome to the "Porma Valley" Visitors’ Centre. Just like the rest of the park visitors’ centres, all throughout the region of Castilla and León, this is the recommended access point for these nature areas. At this information centre, monitors will provide information about the Regional Park and help you to plan your visit.

Here, you can find information about the signature species and habitats, to help you identify and appreciate the cultural and natural heritage in a respectful way. It promotes the conservation and appreciation of biodiversity and cultural heritage.

The "Porma Valley" Visitors’ Centre is in Puebla de Lillo. This centre was built inside an old, remodelled school.

Puebla de Lillo, with 660 residents, is in the Porma river valley which runs from the north to the south of the northern part of the León province. They have found various traces which confirm that this region has been inhabited since the Metal Ages, around 6000 years ago. The most important peak is the Susarón, with an altitude of 1878 metres.

The Porma Valley is known for its picturesque natural environment, characterised by hills, forests and the Porma river. The local economy has been historically linked to agriculture and livestock, contributing to a rich cultural tradition.

In the "Porma Valley" Visitors’ Centre, you can learn about the values of the Riaño and Mampodre Mountain Regional Park through a sensory experience.

The Riaño and Mampodre Mountain Regional Park Visitors’ Centre is in the Northeast of the León province. Together with the ‘Picos de Europa’, they form the most extensive limestone formation in Western Europe, and an evident glacial erosion. It has an area of 101,336 hectares.

Go inside the Visitors’ centre. The reception desk is to your right. The green shop is opposite you, at the back of the room.

On the wall to your left there are two totems with small screens showing different documentaries about different parks in the network of nature areas in Castilla and León. These documentaries, along with posters to the right, are changed depending on which park is being promoted at the time.

Go to the back of the room. There is a corridor beside the green shop, which leads to the exhibition. Once you go in, you will find a tall panel in front of you, which is the start of the exhibition. It is titled: "Discover the park with your senses".

The tour will bring you through three different rooms with smells and sounds, creating an imaginary journey from the to the highest peaks.

Go into the first room, which focuses on riverside forests. In the centre, there is a display with tree trunks from different species which can be found on the banks of the mountain rivers. You can get close and touch them.

The first trunks you will find, on the end of the display closest to the entrance, is from a black poplar. Feel its thin and smooth bark, it is a greyish green.

Black poplar are deciduous trees who thrive in mild and humid climates, commonly found near sources of water. These trees are known for this quick growth, reaching 30 metres tall. Their wood is light and used to make paper and furniture.

The next two trunks, to the right of the first one, are from a linden tree. Feel its thin and smooth, greyish bark. As linden trees mature, their bark needs to get coarser and develop cracks.

The linden tree is known for its elegant form, oval leaves and scented leaves, which can be white or light yellow. This tree thrives in well-drained ground. Linden tea, made from the tree’s flower, is traditionally used for its relaxing properties.

The third pair of trunks are from ash trees. Feel the smooth bark of these trees. The colour can be grey, brown or greyish green.

Ash trees grow quickly. Their leaves are conflicting and pinnate, with resistant and flexible wood. This gives ash trees significant value in industry, being used to make furniture, tools and musical instruments.

The last pair of tree trunks are from willow trees. When you touch the bark, you will notice the infinite vertical streaks on the trunk of this tree.

Willows are deciduous trees that grow very quickly. These trees need moist environments and cannot tolerate extreme temperatures, although in some cases they can resist freezes of up to -15ºC and temperatures of up to 35ºC. Their bark is white or grey and salicylic acid can be extracted from them. It was used to flower fevers in the past.

On the display, you will also find real-size models of the birds that can be found in these areas: the common kingfisher and the European dipper.

The common kingfisher is known for its blue plumage on top and red plumage on its chest. It has a long, sharp beak which it uses to catch small fish. You can find it on branches above the rivers, lying in wait for the fish that swim below.

The European dipper is a bird species known for living in aquatic environments, such as rivers and fast-flowing streams. Their plumage is dark brown, with a white chest. They have a long, pointed beak which they use to fish. When go into the water, they use their strong legs to dive and travel underwater in search of aquatic animals.

You can also find a stuffed toy of a very particular animal, the Pyrenean desman. It is a small mammal, about 10cm in size, with slightly webbed paws and a long tail that it uses as a rudder to swim in water. Its snout is like a small trunk, they use it to dig in search of insects. They have nasal valves that they close to plunge into the water and dive. This small animal is at risk of extinction nowadays.

Both the European dipper and the desman are bio-indicators of environmental quality, due to their sensibility to factors like air and water pollution. The abundance of these species in an area provides valuable information about the general health of an ecosystem.

One of the ends of the display has a square box. Put your fingers in the wholes on the sides to feel the riverbed. If you open the cover, you can see the gravel and round stones and pebbles, which were formed by the erosion of the passing water.

Before you leave the room, enjoy the bird sounds and the different smells associated with this environment, like the sweet and intoxicating smell of the honeysuckle.

Go to the wall opposite the entrance to continue the tour. Open the door and go into the next room. In this one you will learn about summer nights in the high mountain forests.

If you listen to the sounds, you can hear the hoot of a tawny owl, wolves howling and the numerous insects that live in these forests on cool summer nights.

In front of you, to the right, there are two lighted cylindrical columns. These columns have some small binoculars attached, through them you can see images of animals like bats, long-eared owls and fireflies.

Opposite the entrance, there is another cylindrical column with a glass display. Inside this display, there is a model of a woodpecker’s nest, built inside a tree trunk.

In this display, there are a huge variety of objects that you can feel and touch.

Among these objects, there are different tree trunks. When you get further from the rivers and higher up the mountain, the trees tend to have thicker bark which allows them to retain more water.

The first two tree trunks in the display, to your left, are from an oak tree. Touch it and feel its rough and coarse bark, with crests and cracks all over the trunk.

Oak trees have lobulate leaves, they produce acorns and have a bark which becomes thick and rough with age. This resistant wood is used in construction and carpentry.

To the right of the oak trunks, there are slices of wood with acorns, pinecones, bird feathers and small beechnuts and the pod they come in.

Continue to the right. You will find a beech trunk. You will notice that its bark is relatively smooth and soft, although when it matures it gets thicker and rougher.

Beech trees are deciduous trees known for their oval leaves with serrated edges which have vibrant colours in autumn. As well as their practical value, beech trees contribute to the biodiversity of the forest and have historically been used for their edible fruits, known as beechnuts.

The next two trunks are from a European red pine. When you touch it, you will notice that it is quite rough and coarse. Their colour varies from light to dark and even reddish brown.

In Puebla de Lillo, there is an important pine forest which is a Reserve, called Pinar de Lillo. This pine forest is made up of native European red pines. They are always green, because pine trees do not loose their leaves in Autumn. These pine trees are considered native as they were not planted by people, but this pine tree is one of the last traces of the vegetation that was present in the area before the last glaciation. Access is restricted.

Lastly, you will find another pair of trunks, belonging to birch trees. Run your hand over the soft and smooth silvery-white bark.

Birch trees are notably adaptable, rapidly colonising disturbed areas. Their bark, which comes off in layers, is a distinctive characteristic and contributes to their thermal regulation. Birch trees mark the edges of the forests and after them, there are no more trees.

On the display, you can also see a model of a crossbill. It is a bird that is characterised by its curved, pointed beak, adapted to extract pine nuts from acorns, which is their main food source. The adult males are reddish, while the females have a greenish plumage.

One of the ends of the display has a square box. Put your hand into the opening to touch the forest floor. Open the cover to see the fallen leaves and numerous fallen fruit, such as pinecones, beechnuts and acorns.

After the display, there is another circular column with a display cabinet. This display has a piece of trunk from a tree covered in lichen. These lichens are an indicator that the area is a high-quality environment, i.e. with no pollution and clean air.

Open the door to go into the next part of the exhibition. This section focuses on the winter landscapes of the high mountains.

As soon as you go in, you will see a snowball in the centre of it. Place your hand on it to feel the typical cold of the areas in the high mountains in winter, where there is abundant snowfall and long winters.

On the screen to the left, there is an image of the complex Mampodre glacier in spring. During the winter it is covered in snow, but when spring comes and this melts, the mountains are green and rocky.

In display, below the screen, there is a model of the frozen ground on the high mountains with a silhouette of chamois tracks. Beside it there is an exhibition on big rocks, mainly limestone. The far end of the display has a square box. Put your hand in the opening to touch the limestone. You can open the cover to see it.

Hanging from the ceiling above your head, there is a model of an Alpine chough, and above the screens there is a red-billed chough perched.

These birds are known for living in mountainous and rocky cliff environments. Red-billed chough stand out due to their black plumage and red beak. Meanwhile the Alpine chough is an alpine bird with a black plumage with a purple or green sheen, and a yellow beak. These birds fly in acrobatics and eat a variety of foods, including insects and leftovers of human food.

Enjoy the sound of the high mountain birds before continuing on the tour.

Go to the wall opposite the entrance and go to the next room. This last part of the exhibition is about flora and fauna diversity in the high mountains.

This part is divided in four sections. Each one is dedicated to the different strategies that animals and plants have use to survive.

The first of these four sections is in front of you, titled "Eat and don’t get eaten". The panels on the wall to your right has information on techniques and mechanisms that some animals and plants use to secure food and avoid being eaten by others.

There are animals who base their survival on agility and speed, such as roe deer. They are small mammals from the deer family, easily recognisable from the white coat on their behind. They are known for their slender and athletic appearance and the branched antlers of the males. They prefer forest and meadow habitats, being mostly nocturnal and herbivorous. Their back legs are much more developed than their front legs, and they allow them to move at great speeds to flee from their predators.

Other, less agile animals, are covered in prickles or shells to protect them. That is the case with hedgehogs and caddisflies, and also plants like blackthorns.

Caddisflies are aquatic insects which can build their protective cover from sticks and gravel on the riverbed. This means that their soft abdomen is not at the mercy of predators.

Blackthorns are deciduous bushes with thorny branches and serrated leaves. They have white flowers in spring, followed by round blue-black fruit in summer, called sloes. Their strong and robust thorns are their main defence mechanism to protect their fruit.

In the glass display there are four lower jaw bones with remaining teeth. These bones show how diet influences the development and evolution of all of these creatures. Wolves need large canines to rip meat from their prey, while herbivores like red deer have wide flat molars to grind up vegetation.

Below the sign reads: "Poison!". You will see two spinning boxes. Spin it to see two animal species that produce a toxic substance: the common toad and bee.

The common toad is an amphibian with warty, wrinkled skin varying from brown to olive green. They have glands on their skin on both sides of their head which secrete a toxic substance which irritates the mouth of predators that try to eat it.

A bee’s dagger shaped stinger has barbs and is connected to a venomous bag at the end. Worker bees use their stinger when their hive is threatened, and when they sting, the stinger stays in the intruder’s skin and detaches from the bee’s abdomen. Bee venom causes a burning pain. This act of stinging causes the worker bee to die, as it loses its stinger and other internal organs. Did you know that the queen bee, unlike its subjects, can sting repeatedly without losing its stinger?

The next section, titled "Equipped to move around the mountain", will explain how animals are adapted to be able to live on the high mountains.

The curved part of the column opposite the panels has the archetypal animal of the Regional Park: Pyrenean chamois.

Pyrenean chamois are a subspecies of chamois that live in the Cantabrian mountains. During the winter, they grow a heavy coat to protect them from the cold. They move with acrobatic jumps on the rocks, thanks to the strange shape of their legs, adapted to the rocky mountain ground.

The panels in this section have information on animals like wallcreepers and mountain goats.

Wallcreepers are small and colourful birds that live in mountainous regions, especially in rocky and steep environments. Their distinctive plumage includes tones of red, grey, black and white, wallcreepers are agile when moving along vertical surfaces.

The glass display to the left has some crampons, which humans need to move on the mountain like these animals. These metal devices are attached to boots or shoes for additional traction to walk or climb snowy or frozen ground. They have sharp points which are essential for taking on slippy and steep surfaces.

Instead of the steep mountains, you will find certain animals that have evolved to move like a fish in water, such as water shrews and otters.

Water shrew are small mammals characterised by their long body and dense coat. They are agile swimmers and use their long tail as a rudder to move graciously through the water, hunting for aquatic insects.

At the top of these panels, there are two animals adapted to spending long periods holding onto certain surfaces. Pine martens and black woodpeckers.

Pine martens are small carnivorous mammals similar to ferrets and weasels, with brown and black coats. They spend ours on tree trunks and tops, lying in wait of their prey. They have strong claws and a long, heavy tail that they use to balance.

Black woodpeckers are woodpeckers with a black and white plumage, the males have a red crest on their heads. They mainly eat insects that they find under tree bark, using their sharp beak to make holes. Thanks to their backwards claws and tail, which they use as a support, they can spend ours making holes in tree trunks until they find the food they need.

On the next column, you can see the alpine newt.

The alpine newt is an amphibian that lives in mountainous areas. Their distinctive appearance includes a dark back with patches and a bright orange or red abdomen. During their breeding season, the males develop crests on their backs and tails, and the species has a toxic substance in their skin glands.

Take a step forward to the third and last column to see another typical animal in the area: the common bunting reed.

It is a galliform bird. They are distinguished by their dark grey plumage with black around their head and neck. They have a long, rounded tail, an off-white beak and a red mark above their eyes. This species is at critical risk of extinction. In 2022 their population was estimated at less than 300. The main factors that contribute to their extinction is deterioration, loss and fragmentation of their natural habitat.

It is titled "Some tricks for surviving the winter", and as the title suggests, it has information about the tricks certain animals use to survive the cold winters.

Open the cover of the box to the right to see an animal that spends the year collecting provisions for winter.

Ants face the winter with different adaptive strategies. Before winter, lots of ant species store food in their anthills. This can include seeds, dead insects or other food sources. With these food reserves, the colonies can survive the periods when it is not possible to find food outside the anthill.

On the other hand, some animals change their coat depending on the season. Stoats grow a long and thick winter coat to protect themselves from the cold. While its summer coat is brown or tanned on top and white underneath, their winter coat is completely white, with just the tip of its tail being black, helping it to camouflage in the snow. Spin the box with an image of a stoat to see the different colours of their coat.

On the top of the panel there is an image of a dormouse. These animals spend the winter sleeping. This small rodent mammal has a soft and dense coat of fur which is greyish or brown, and big round eyes. They have adapted to live in trees, with agile extremities and pointed claws to climb around the branches. Their long and furry tail helps them to keep their balance.

Lots of dormouse species hibernate. Hibernation is a state of physical inactivity which allows them to conserve energy during the colder months. During hibernation, their body temperature drops, their heart rate slows down and their metabolism slows down significantly. During this time, they stay in nests in sheltered places, such as tree trunks or holes in the ground.

Certain bird species avoid the cold winters by migrating. Migration usually happens seasonally, with birds that move to warmer areas in winter and return to their breeding areas during spring and summer. This cycle is related to the changes in availability of food and climate conditions. They follow specific routes during their migration journeys.

Some birds fly large distances, crossing continents and oceans, while others make shorter journeys. Grey partridges, for example, move from the high mountains down to the valley floors.

This last section is titled "Camouflage or stand out", and it has information on camouflage and the range of colours of some animals and plants.

Lots of animal species have impressive camouflage mechanisms, some are so evolved and adapted that they can even seem to be invisible. On the lower part of the panel, you can see two boxes with screens. When you press the button in the middle, the screens light up to show information on two animal species with great imitation skills.

On one of them is the Polygonia butterfly. Their open wings reveal a colourful and detailed pattern, in tones of orange and brown, as well as smaller spots. However, when they close them, they are brown with a distinctive pattern including spots and marks that look like fallen leaves. They also have irregular, serrated edges, making them look even more like try leaves.

The other box has a European nightjar. This bird had a coat which is mainly tones of grey and brown and looks like tree bark and other similar surfaces. Their colouring helps the bird to hide when it is perched on branches or on the ground, mimicking its environment.

In contrast, there are certain animal and plant species whose mission is to stand out. Some examples are holly, orchids and the Iberian emerald lizard.

The plants develop striking colours on their flowers and fruit, with the specific goal of reproduction and survival. These colours are like visual signs to attract pollinators like insects, birds and bats, benefiting the transference of pollen and fertilisation. With regards to their fruit, these striking colours aid in attracting animals which disperse seeds, helping with the effective dispersion of their seeds in different locations.

The Iberian emerald lizard exhibits bright colours which vary from green, blue and red to brown, with spots on their back. These colours are especially striking in males during breeding season.

Lastly, the sign below reads: "Yellow and black: a dangerous combination". Here you will see animals whose yellow and black colouring warns that their bodies have toxic glands. Spin the warning triangles to see these two animals: wasps and salamander.

At the back of the room, there is a nature room where they host workshops.

Continue to the back wall and leave via the corridor at the far left. You will end up back in the reception area, beside the entrance to the exhibition.

At the end of the room, you will find the audiovisual room. There is a 10 minute report shown there on the Riaño and Mampodre Mountain Regional Park and the environment in Puebla de Lillo.

This audio track ends your visit to the "Porma Valley" Visitors’ Centre, where you have learned a little more about the landscapes, flora and fauna in the region. If you wish to receive more information, go to the reception desk or consult any of the visitors’ centres employees.

Thanks for your visit.