About this journey

Arriondas station sits in the valley of the Sella river in eastern Asturias, where the metre-gauge Santander–Oviedo line threads through the foothills lying to the north of the Picos de Europa. This is one of the most civil-engineering-intensive railways on the Iberian Peninsula: the Cabezón de la Sal to Infiesto section of the line alone spans 155 km and incorporates 57 tunnels and 59 bridges and viaducts, a density that reflects the broken, river-cut terrain the builders faced.

The line's origins reach back to two separate companies advancing from opposite ends of the route: the Compañía de los Ferrocarriles Económicos de Asturias, founded in Oviedo in 1887, and the Compañía del Ferrocarril del Cantábrico, founded in Santander in 1890. Their tracks finally met at Llanes station on 30 May 1905, completing the through connection across this corner of northern Spain. The state operator FEVE, created in 1965, later absorbed both predecessors and continued working the corridor on the 1,000 mm metre-gauge track the original engineers laid.

From Arriondas the line runs westward through Asturias, keeping to the coastal foothills as the terrain gradually opens toward the Cantabrian shore. By the time the journey reaches Puente San Miguel, the route has crossed from Asturias into Cantabria, tracing in a little under three hours a corridor where tunnels and viaducts remain as constant a presence as the green hillsides closing in on either side.