The kings, Princess Leonor and Infanta Sofía complete their agenda of activities this Saturday in Asturias with the visit to SotresExemplary Town Award 2024, a town in the council of Cabrales, located at 1,050 meters of altitude and with 108 inhabitantswhich they arrived shortly before 1 p.m.
Located in the Biosphere Reserve (UNESCO) and Picos de Europa National Park, Sotres is one of the highest towns in Asturias and its economic activity is based on livestock and countryside, tourism and agri-food businesses specialized in the production of Cabrales cheese.
The royal family’s visit to this town will last about three hours, during which they will learn about the artisanal production process of Cabrales cheesewhose way of shaping this internationally famous product remains the same as it was centuries ago. They will also visit one of the caves in which cheeses mature, which gives it its peculiar flavor and special characteristics of smell, taste and appearance.
Sotres also receives numerous visitors related to mountaineering, attracted by the beauty of the surrounding landscape and the emblematic Naranjo de Bulnes. The kings, the princess and the infanta will maintain a meeting with high mountain guides, when the 120th anniversary of the first ascent of Picu Urriellu marks.
They will also meet with the shepherds representing the local livestock, with the elders and children of the town that the Princess of Asturias Foundation awarded for having “conserved and promoted, in a high mountain area, a traditional activity based on extensive and sustainable livestockcomplemented by a quality agri-food industry and tourism.”
The Exemplary Town Award went to Sotres for also containing a “strong and young associative movement that maintains interest in the preservation of heritage, the conservation of the landscape and the improvement of infrastructure, as well as a notable sociocultural dynamic.
Third visit of a monarch
Felipe VI is the third monarch to go to the Picos de Europa after the visits made by Alfonso XII and Alfonso XIII. In 1881 and 1882 Alfonso XII carried out excursions and hunts through the Picos de Europa and was in Sotres and Tielve. And Alfonso XIII was also there on several occasions to hunt.
The Exemplary Town award, which last year recognized the parishes of Arroes, Pion and Candanal, in Villaviciosa, It is endowed with 40,000 euros. The prize is intended for the town, village, population center, landscape space or human group that has stood out notably in the defense and conservation of its natural and environmental surroundings, of its historical, cultural or artistic heritage, in economic and social initiatives or in the implementation of community works or other outstanding manifestations of solidarity.
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