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Asturian Heritage Routes

Asturian Heritage Routes

Past, present and future of a community

Updated on 11 August 2023
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Asturian Heritage Routes

Asturias is well known for its boundless nature and its beautiful landscapes, but the legacy of its past that goes back thousands of years is no less important and has left archaeological jewels everywhere, historical monuments, and the architectural, cultural, and industrial heritage of Great value. A good part of this legacy, the capital to get to know Asturias and the Asturians better, can be visited on site and enjoyed first hand.




Latitude: 43.3471527 Length: -5.8666992
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Of all the historical-artistic manifestations that we can discover in the Principality of Asturias, UNESCO has already taken good note and has granted the distinction of Heritage to the Asturian Paleolithic, to its legendary and unusual pre-Romanesque architecture, to the Holy Chamber of the Oviedo Cathedral and the Camino de Santiago.

Jurassic Coast

The geological sites from time immemorial, which are exhibited in the form of an open-air museum, are also admirable. This is the case with the Jurassic and the Route of the Coast of the Dinosaurs, well delimited between the towns of Gijón and Ribadesella. A stretch of coastline with an abundance of footprints and bone remains of these reptiles.

Coast of the dinosaurs Asturias

Coast of the dinosaurs Asturias

On the eastern coast of Asturias every day that passes more fossils and traces of a fertile ...

Jurassic Museum - MUJA

Jurassic Museum - MUJA

In a privileged place on the coast of Asturias a few meters above sea level, is located the ...

Glacial Fauna Center

Glacial Fauna Center

Human beings who arrived in Europe from the African continent, 40.000 years ago, suffered a climate...

Prehistory

We come to the Neanderthals. The site of El Sidrón It is located in the Piloña council, relatively close to the Asturian coast. In the small "Galería del Osario", the best collection of Neanderthal skeletal remains in the entire Iberian Peninsula has been cataloged since 2000. The declaration of UNESCO World Heritage Site in the Principality includes 5 Prehistoric Caves with outstanding rock paintings and engravings. Our community is, together with Cantabria, the French Pyrenees and the Dordogne, one of the regions of Europe that keeps the most caves open to the public. But, due to conservation issues, your visit is restricted to a few months a year, and daily quota of people. In any case, at any time you can visit informative centers such as the Teverga Prehistory Park.

The 13 of the Sidrón

The 13 of the Sidrón

The El Sidrón deposit is located in the council of Piloña, relatively close to…

Tito Bustillo Cave

Tito Bustillo Cave

The cave of Tito Bustillo is one of the great sanctuaries of the Palaeolithic art of Europe. Shape …

Cueva del Pindal, a rock sanctuary

Cueva del Pindal, a rock sanctuary

Since prehistory was seen in the lands of today's Ribadedeva, a lot of time has passed, so much...

The Park of Prehistory

The Park of Prehistory

The Teverga Prehistory Park is the ancestral art gallery par excellence, houses the ...

Neolithic

The Iron Age manifested itself in Asturias mainly through fortified towns, known as castros most concentrated in the central and western areas of the region. The idol of Peña You, tattooed on a mysterious rock, is another cardinal point of the Bronze Age in Asturias.

Archaeological sites of Asturias

Archaeological sites of Asturias

Parietal art in our region, which in some cases equates us to the great art centers...

The Castro de Coaña

The Castro de Coaña

The castreña culture belongs to the Iron Age, a hard, bellicose period, full of insecurity. …

The Idol of Peña You

The Idol of Peña You

The idol of Peña Tú, tattooed forever on a mysterious rock that has provoked religious sentiment...

Romanization

Asturias has significant remains in the form of mosaics (Vega del Ciego, Veranes or La Estaca), hot springs (Campo Valdés, Valduno and Lugo de Llanera) or burials (Paredes and Argandenes). Epigraphy, ceramics, ornamental objects or cash, have abundant examples in the permanent exhibition of the Archaeological Museum of Asturias.

The Roman sites of Gijón

The Roman sites of Gijón

Conquering Asturias, and specifically Gijón, was not an easy task for the Empire, since the Asturians gave…

Archaeological Museum of Asturias

Archaeological Museum of Asturias

The Archaeological Museum of Asturias is located in the very heart of Oviedo, at the back of the …

pre-Romanesque art

The Asturian Pre-Romanesque is known as the group of churches, buildings and other artistic manifestations linked to the Kingdom of Asturias, whose history takes place between the 718th and 910th centuries (XNUMX-XNUMX). An original and very exceptional architectural style, a unique art in the history of Western European architecture that led the enlightened Melchor Gaspar to describe it as "Asturian Art"; Today it is a World Heritage Site.

The Asturian pre-Romanesque of Oviedo

The Asturian pre-Romanesque of Oviedo

The most native architecture of Asturias loses its roots more than a thousand years ago. The traces of the…

Pre-Romanesque and Romanesque of Villaviciosa

Pre-Romanesque and Romanesque of Villaviciosa

La ornamental wealth of Villaviciosa's heritage is discovered in all its finishes: in the arches...

Santa Cristina de Lena

Santa Cristina de Lena

Santa Cristina is unique. A monument more than a thousand years old that is a little secret within the…

the Camino de Santiago

In close connection with the Kingdom of Asturias, there is the birth of the Camino de Santiago, promoted by the Asturian king Alfonso II in the XNUMXth century, and which over time has become one of the most important cultural routes in the world.

The Camino de Santiago in Asturias

The Camino de Santiago in Asturias

Although the Camino de Santiago on its Asturian side is less traveled compared to other routes of...

Medieval

The artistic, historical and architectural legacy of the Middle Ages in Asturias is abundant. From the late Middle Ages, among many other milestones, we propose here the following places and itineraries of interest.

Medieval towns of Asturias

Medieval towns of Asturias

In Asturias the medieval remains of walls are well known, perhaps not so much entire towns with ...

The route of the mills in Villaviciosa

The route of the mills in Villaviciosa

In Asturias it will be difficult for us to come across a windmill. Due to its geographical configuration,…

Ethnography in Taramundi

Ethnography in Taramundi

We would have to go back 2 or 3 centuries to understand many things about our XNUMXst century. Make a …

The Cathedral of Oviedo

The Cathedral of Oviedo

Not many years ago, the façade of the Cathedral of Oviedo appeared dark, superficially...

Asturian ethnography

The network of Ethnographic Museums of Asturias [MEDA Network] began its operation in 2001, at the request of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the Principality of Asturias.
Its mission is to coordinate collection management, dissemination, research and training work in museums of this type in Asturias. In them we find a large sample of objects and belongings related to the agricultural world, livestock or fishing activities, and also to that intangible heritage of Asturian culture that makes up, among others, cider or bagpipes.

Ethnographic museums of Asturias

Ethnographic museums of Asturias

The Network of Ethnographic Museums of Asturias [MEDA network] It began operating in the year…

Asturian granaries

Asturian granaries

Etymologically, the word hórreo comes from the Latin horreum, which designated a building in which…

Indian architecture

The Asturian emigration America at the end of the XNUMXth century and the beginning of the XNUMXth century was a social phenomenon that over the years has become part of the history of the community. Back home, those who managed to make their fortune practiced a competition unknown until then in their humble rural environment: translating into new homes all the wealth they displayed, always trying to make their house the most beautiful and striking. This is how Asturias enjoys a high density of haughty and colorful mansions, unique Modernist palaces and mansions with dream gardens that will leave us speechless.

Archives of Indians

Archives of Indians

The Asturian emigration to America at the end of the XNUMXth century and the beginning of the XNUMXth century was quite a ...

Route of the indianos' houses

Route of the indianos' houses

Monumental facades, ornate fences, galleries, patios, balconies, dreamy doorways, chapels...

Somao, history of Indianos

Somao, history of Indianos

Somao has a high density of haughty and colorful mansions with dream gardens that will leave us…

Industrial heritage of Asturias

The industrial heritage of our country in general and of Asturias in particular reflects an incredible change, the transition from an economy based on agriculture to one based on the production of consumer items. The industrial revolution transformed places, landscapes, people... In Asturias, most are linked to industry and mining, one of the sectors that sustained the business and labor fabric of a good number of generations of Asturians.

Industrial Heritage of Asturias

Industrial Heritage of Asturias

Here we collect some of the equipment scattered throughout the Asturian geography and that have a special…

art centers

El museum of fine arts of asturias, inaugurated in 1980 and recently rehabilitated, has a collection of between 8 and 10.000 inventoried pieces, although only between 350-400 are exhibited to the public. It contains paintings by Spanish artists -highlighting Asturian ones- and foreigners (especially Italian and Flemish painting), as well as sculptures, photographs and glass and earthenware objects. He Art Center of the Labor, in Gijón is a domotic and living museum, an immense space with a total of 14.400 square meters of surface to seek experimentation around new concepts and artistic languages. He Niemeyer Center de Avilés is a unique species of its kind, a cultural agglutinator that seeks the synergies of the arts within an enveloping architecture and beautiful and calculated perspectives.

Museum of Fine Arts of Asturias

Museum of Fine Arts of Asturias

The Museum, inaugurated in Oviedo in May 1980, is located installed in three buildings in the neighborhood ...

Art Center of the Labor

Art Center of the Labor

Impressive and surprising, those are the words that best define the new Art Center of the…

The Niemeyer Center

The Niemeyer Center

The Niemeyer Center is a unique species of its kind, a cultural agglutinator who seeks the…


Text: © Ramón Molleda for asturias.com Copyright Ramon Molleda