Asturias: Spain's Wild and Unspoiled North

There's a saying in Spain: Asturias es un paraiso meaning Asturias is a paradise. It's the kind of claim that usually invites skepticism, but here, it holds. A narrow strip of land between the Cantabrian Mountains and the sea, Asturias packs an extraordinary variety of landscapes into a small space: dramatic coastline, deep river gorges, medieval churches, ancient cave art, and the Picos de Europa - one of the most spectacular mountain ranges in all of Europe.

Asturias is also, by a quirk of history, the oldest kingdom in Iberia. When the Moors swept through Spain in the 8th century, it was in the mountains of Asturias that Christian resistance held firm and from here that the long Reconquista began. That history is still visible in the landscape: tiny pre-Romanesque churches, mountaintop monasteries, and a regional identity that runs remarkably deep.

Oviedo: The Elegant Capital

Oviedo is one of Spain's most pleasant mid-sized cities; clean, walkable, with a beautiful historic center and a genteel atmosphere that its residents are quietly proud of. Woody Allen, who filmed Vicky Cristina Barcelona here in part, famously called it a "fairy tale city", and there's a bronze statue of him near the old town to mark the compliment.

The Cathedral of San Salvador is the centerpiece of the old quarter, housing the Camara Santa, a UNESCO-listed chapel with a remarkable collection of early medieval relics and goldsmithing. The surrounding streets are full of sidrerías, cider houses, where waiters pour Asturian cider from above their heads to aerate it, a ritual as much as a service.

Nearby, on the hill of Monte Naranco overlooking the city, sit two of the most important pre-Romanesque churches in Europe: Santa María del Naranco and San Miguel de Lillo, both built in the 9th century and both UNESCO World Heritage Sites. They're modest in size but extraordinary in their historical significance, built when most of Europe was in the early medieval dark.

The Picos de Europa

The Picos de Europa - shared between Asturias, Cantabria, and Castilla y León - are among the most dramatic mountains in Western Europe. Limestone massifs rising sharply from the coast, deep river canyons, alpine meadows, and mountain villages that haven't changed in centuries. Spain's first national park was established here in 1918, and the landscape is as striking today as it was then.

The Ruta del Cares is the Picos' most famous walk, a dramatic 12-kilometer gorge trail carved into the cliff face above the Cares river, with sheer rock walls rising hundreds of meters on both sides. It's not technically difficult, but it is visually overwhelming. The village of Covadonga, set around a pink neo-Romanesque basilica and the cave-shrine where the Reconquista began, is one of Asturias' most visited and most meaningful sites.

For mountain biking, hiking, canyoning, and climbing, the Picos de Europa is one of the best destinations in Spain. The town of Cangas de Onís, just outside the park, makes an excellent base; it has a beautiful Roman bridge, excellent restaurants, and easy access to the mountains.

The Coast: Gijón, Llanes, and the Beaches

Gijón is Asturias' largest city and main port, with a lively beach promenade, a handsome old quarter on the San Lorenzo peninsula, and an excellent Aquarium and Laboral art center in a spectacular former Franco-era workers' university. It's a working city with good energy and great sidrerías.

The Asturian coast is studded with beautiful beaches that, because of the Atlantic climate, never get the brutal summer crowds of the Mediterranean. Playa de Gulpiyuri - a landlocked beach where the sea enters through a natural tunnel in the rock - is one of Spain's most extraordinary natural curiosities. The beaches around Llanes are spectacular: Playa del Cue, Playa de Torimbia, Playa de Gulpiyuri - backed by green cliffs and surrounded by farmland, they look more like Ireland than Spain.

Prehistoric Art: Altamira and the Cave Culture

The Cantabrian coast, including Asturias, was one of the great centers of Upper Paleolithic art. The Altamira cave (just over the border in Cantabria) is the most famous, but Asturias has over 40 cave art sites of its own, several accessible to visitors. The Cueva de Tito Bustillo in Ribadesella contains exceptional paintings of horses and deer dating back 20,000 years. Standing in the dark looking at these images, you feel the extraordinary reach of human creativity.

What to Eat and Drink in Asturias

Asturian food is hearty, generous, and built for the climate. Fabada asturiana - a slow-cooked stew of large white fabes beans with chorizo, morcilla, lacón, and saffron - is the region's great dish, a meal that defeats hunger convincingly and leaves you in a pleasant, satisfied stupor. Pitu de caleya is a free-range chicken cooked in cider and another another staple of Asturian cuisine.

The cheeses of Asturias are outstanding particularly Cabrales, a strong blue cheese aged in mountain caves, and Afuega'l Pitu, an ancient soft cheese made in traditional conical molds. Then there's sidra, natural Asturian cider, slightly cloudy, tart, and poured in an elaborate ritual, is the drink of the region. Drinking cider in a sidrería in Oviedo, surrounded by wooden barrels and the sound of conversation, is one of the great simple pleasures of northern Spain.

Asturias doesn't shout. It doesn't have the glamour of Andalucía or the culinary fame of the Basque Country. What it has is something quieter and perhaps more durable: extraordinary landscape, ancient history, excellent food, and a way of life that's genuinely its own. Visit once, and you'll find yourself planning the return trip before you've even left.