Asturias Tourist Guide 2018

14

Come home to Paradise

Coaña Castro

de Luiña (Cudillero) and the San Salvador de Cornellana Monastery (Salas).

Religious travellers are astounded by the gothic Cathedral of San Salvador de Oviedo, which conserves the relics of Santo Sudario, the Cruz de la VIctoria and the Cruz de los Ángeles, and the legend of the goldsmith pilgrims who designed the piece for Alfonso II; and the cave and Basilica of Covadonga, a mountainous area of picturesque beauty in which the Virgin appeared before Pelayo and instilled himwith the courage to begin the Reconquista. This list of must-see sites is endless, frommagnificent monasteries like those in Corias, San Salvador de Cornellana or Santa María de Villanueva de Oscos, to theatres such as the Riera de Villaviciosa or palaces such as La Quinta de Selgas in El Pito, Cudillero, named the small Asturian Versailles. It is impossible to understand the essence of this rich cultural tapestry without at least knowing a little bit about its ethnography. The museums and themed attractions evoke Asturias’s musical, educational and economic history of a society that has known how to adapt without abandoning its roots. The Museum of the Asturian People, in Gijón/Xixón: the Grandas de Salime Ethnographic Museum, the Os Teixois Ethnographic Site, in Taramundi; the Ethnographic Museum of Eastern Asturias, in Porrúa-Llanes; the Maritime Museum of Asturias, in Gozón; the exquisite building “Quinta Guadalupe” that houses the Indiano Archives-Emigration Museum Foundation, in Colombres; or the Rural School Museum of Asturias are some examples.

Os Teixois (Taramundi)

The Royal Site of Covadonga (Cangas de Onís)