Despite being old, some of these mountains are still tall enough to see most part of the Valley from their top; for instance, from the Padornelo you can see the city and the valley as they have been and continue to be complementary to one another.

It is in this landscape, which is green for the most part of the year, where human beings wandered through centuries. That is precisely the case of diocese of Britonia which already existed in the British Isles back in the 4th century, and which was established in Galicia from the late 5th century or early 6th century, in an attempt to escape from the anglosaxons invading that land at the time.

The diocese, going from Ortigueira to Navia soon met its first owner, Bishop Mailoc.

Later on, that parish would develop to give raise to diocese Mindoniense, which rose in the 9th century in the midst of the Reconquest founded by Pelayo, a noble visigoth, and next to which numerous villages later turned out into permanent human settlements would arise.

Settlers never lacked water, the most important of vital neccessities along with food because here, next to the mountains the lands are flat and productive. Streams and fountains share the space with the glassy-watered rivers of Rego Cesuras and Rego Valiñadares flowing in the rives Masma, the most important fluvial channel in Mondoñedo; a name used already in the Medieval and probably Pre-romanic era, which can be roughly translated as “the very wet river”.

Those waters, sometimes calm and sometimes rough, as is the case of the renowned Salto Fervenza, show us the grandiosity of nature inside the valley.

The trees, bushes and water along with the old mountains and plains make the Valley of Mondoñedo a priviliged place not only in Galicia but also in Spain. Unique places are found there, expressed in local legends such as the one in the cave where, according to a long-held tradition, the haunted souls of King Cintuolo and his beautiful daughter, Manfada, dwell.