El Espín

El Espín is a small locality in the municipality of Allande, in Asturias, on the Camino Primitivo mountain route between Tineo and Pola de Allande. The name derives from espino or espín, meaning a thorny bush or hawthorn, indicating that thorny scrub vegetation once characterised the hillside terrain at this point.

The setting is the exposed mountain stage of the Primitivo, where hawthorn and gorse scrub colonise the more open ground and the route crosses the high western Asturian sierra. The spiny vegetation toponym is fitting for the rugged, windswept character of this section of the route.