ESPAÑA	Spain
Cantabria

map →

Puente Viesgo is situated at an elevation of 71 m on the river Pas in the comarca Valles Pasiegos of the autonomous community of Cantabria, about 22 km southwest of Santander. The municipality has a population of about 2,900 (2022).

The various populations of Puente Viesgo (Viesgo Bridge) are documented since the year 1000 by the abbey of Santillana del Mar. These documents describe a bridge over the river Pas, from which comes the name of the municipality. Later, the valley passed to the lordship of the marquises of Aguilar de Campoo, the counts of Castañeda. in the 17th century it became part of the Real Valle de Toranzo. However, the lordship continued to be exercised by the marquesses of Aguilar until 1779, when it fully recovered its royal status. The qualities of the thermal waters of the Puente Viesgo spring were already known in the 18th century. In 1862, the waters of the spa were declared of public utility. The caves of Monte Castillo, discovered at the beginning of the 20th century, with their prehistoric wall paintings dating from about 35,000 to 40,000 years ago, are part of the UNESCO World Heritage site of "Cave of Altamira and Paleolithic Cave Art of Northern Spain" (listed in 1985; see list of other UNESCO heritage sites depicted on glasses of this collection).

The Gran Hotel Balneario [background left] next to the bridge across the river Pas goes back to a spa resort of 1766 and 1850. In 1888, the spa was awarded the Gold Medal in the Universal Exhibition of Barcelona. Still in 1898, the Puente Viesgo spa resort was a restored primitive bath house that struggled against the constant threat of flooding from the river. The heydays of the spa began in the 19th century when considerable investments into the spa were made. Finally, 1991 saw the inauguration of the four-star complex with 101 rooms, which were extended to 142 in 2004 with a total capacity for 250 guests, two floors of meeting rooms and banquet halls in a separate building, a spacious car park, private gardens on the site, outdoor swimming pool, tennis courts and a three-floor spa with a combination of original stone vaults and state-of-the-art technology.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puente_Viesgo, https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puente_Viesgo, https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puente_Viesgo; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caves_of_Monte_Castillo; https://balneariodepuenteviesgo.com/en/about-us/gran-hotel/history/]