A to Z of Cathedrals – O is for Oviedo in Spain

Oviedo is only a small city, only just scraping into the top twenty largest cities in Spain and it isn’t even the largest in Asturias so it didn’t take that long to walk around the historical centre and soon there was only one thing left to do – visit the Cathedral.

The building was severely damaged during the Spanish Civil War when the conflict more or less started here and there was fierce Nationalist oppression inflicted by General Franco but it has been restored now and has been returned to its former medieval grandeur.

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Travels in Spain, Wall Tile Decoration

The tiles in Spain often tell a story, theses were taken in the town of Cudillero in Asturias on the North Coast.

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Now(t)

My immediate assessment of Oviedo was that it seemed confident and relaxed and the honey coloured stone of the Plaza Mayor was welcoming and friendly except that is for the ever-present gipsy beggars with their gnarled and twisted faces like characters from a Goya painting who hang around outside cathedral doors and pester people for money as they go come and go.  Personally I find these people to be a downright nuisance and I don’t understand why the authorities don’t simply move them on.

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Work Of Art

Motorway Viaduct, Asturias in Spain

As we twisted and turned around winding bends we suddenly found ourselves below one of the many concrete motorway viaducts that span the estuaries and gorges and we stopped to admire the sweeping, voluptuous structure arching and bending high above us, a magnificent and expansive feat of engineering, sinuous and wriggling like a plate of live eels and with more curves than Marilyn Monroe and from where we stood way below like a futuristic highway in the sky.

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Curves

Autovia de Cantabria and Marilyn Monroe

As we twisted and turned around winding bends we suddenly found ourselves below one of the many concrete motorway viaducts that span the estuaries and gorges and we stopped to admire the twisting, voluptuous structure high above us, a magnificent and expensive feat of engineering, sinuous and wriggling like a plate of live eels and with more curves than Marilyn Monroe and from where we stood way below like a futuristic highway in the sky.

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Marilyn at Haugesund, Norway

Northern Spain – Oviedo and the Kingdom of Asturias

On day three our objective was to leave the northern coast of Asturias and drive into Castilla y León with plans to visit the major cities of the region but first we would be visiting the capital city of Asturias – Oviedo.

After breakfast we settled up with the owner of the hotel, Santiago, and he invited us to return and with what I thought was a very nice touch he said that we should henceforth consider his hotel to be our home in Spain.

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Northern Spain – The Costa Verde, Beaches and Fishing

On the first morning the weather was cold and grey but crucially it wasn’t raining and as I inspected the sky from the window of the room I could see that the cool conditions clearly suited the pilgrim walkers who were setting out one by one along the Comino de la Costa, a northern route of the Way of St. James, on their way to Santiago de Compostela.

After breakfast we put on our warmest clothing combinations and set off for a drive along the northern coast of Asturias, the Costa Verde.

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