サンシェンショのおすすめライド

Demanding climb, but with little traffic and good asphalt

Good area for cycling!

Viewpoint located on a road with little traffic and perfect for cycling!

Good coastal road with beautiful views. Be careful with traffic in summer.

unique landscape where there are many species of birds

The famous shell church was formerly dedicated to San Sebastián, but after the reform, the Virgen del Carmen was substituted as the main image. This chapel venerates the famous San Caralampio III, a 19th-century martyr who is the patron saint of skin diseases. The patronage and veneration of this special place, the thermal waters of the thermal baths on the island of A Toxa, are used as a skin-healing therapy, so people have been going to this chapel since ancient times to ask for the protection of this saint. Why is the church covered with scallop shells? It is the only chapel in the world covered with scallop shells. Originally built in 1909, this was the result of chance. The facade, where the altar is located, faces south, and rain constantly beats down on the walls, creating dampness and damaging the structure. At the end of the 1940s, Raimundo Riestra Calderón, II Marqués de Riestra, summoned a mason to offer a solution to this problem, which had dragged on for almost four decades. The man informed him that a traditional method of preventing water infiltration was to cover scallops with scales all over their surfaces, allowing water to slide down them without wetting the interior. He thought the idea was great and accepted the proposal. When the facade was finished, the Marquis liked it so much that, as administrator of the spa, he ordered the entire church to be covered with shells. It was a slow process that took several years, beginning in the late 1940s and ending in the early 1950s. And one last detail: If you were transported back in time 120 years to the same point where you are now, you wouldn't walk on land, but would float in the water along with the church. Almost the entire garden was an old salt mine, lost in the distant past. It was filled in at the beginning of the 20th century.

The beautiful chapel with its shell cladding is

Perfect road for a bike ride, you have to be careful in summer because of the vehicle traffic