21/5/23, 18:59 Why Spain’s Asturias is an under-the-radar destination

T R AV E L

Discover why this stunning region is

Spain’s best-kept secret
Beyond Barcelona, Asturias entices with gorgeous landscapes and world-class cuisine.

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Sunrise warms the Picos de Europa, part of the Cordillera Cantabrica range that secludes
Asturias from the rest of Spain.
PHOTOGRAPH BY CHIARA GOIA

BY BRUCE SCHOENFELD

PHOTOGRAPHS BY CHIARA GOIA

PUBLISHED DECEMBER 10, 2019 • 20 MIN READ

This is a meal I could eat nowhere else, it occurs to me around the seventh
course. I’m in the mountains of Asturias, one of Nat Geo’s Best Trips for
2020, and I’ve been served a dish of sea urchin and ham that unites the
coast and peaks of this northern Spanish province in a single bite. Two
tables away, I see José Antelo raise his fork in triumph.

Antelo works as an air traffic controller in Barcelona. His brother, Luis, is

a superior court judge in Madrid. They live in two of Europe’s top
restaurant cities; they can enjoy memorable meals night after night
without ever boarding a plane. But three or four times a year, they meet to
eat in Asturias.

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© NGP, Content may not reflect National Geographic's current map policy.

Asturias? This autonomous region of Spain lying along the Bay of Biscay,
dense with trees that run up hillsides, dotted by wild marshland, and
scalloped with tidy beaches, isn’t located between Madrid and Barcelona.
It’s hundreds of miles from either. When I mention that, José laughs. “I’m
sure you know why we come,” he says. “Nowhere else in Spain can you find
so many flavors, such incredible variety, in such a small area. It is like an
entire country.”

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Left: The coastal region’s rich seafood tops menus at acclaimed restaurants such as Güeyu Mar,
in Ribadesella.

Right: In the village of Arriondas, lavender scents the garden at Michelin-starred Casa Marcial,
headed by chef Nacho Manzano, who grew up in the now renovated farmhouse.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY CHIARA GOIA

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We’re dining at Casa Marcial. Housed in an old mansion, or casona,

decorated with window boxes and topped by a barrel-tiled roof, the
restaurant sits at the top of a winding road in La Salgar, a mountain village
that smells of pine. The coast is six miles to the north, as the Asturian
wood pigeon flies. But La Salgar remains so deeply embedded in the hilly,
heavily forested interior of the region that, I’m told, many of its residents
spend their entire childhoods without ever seeing the water.

The Manzano family opened Casa Marcial in the middle of the last century
as a general store, selling olive oil, cider, cattle feed, even clothing. In 1993,
L O G Ithe
22-year-old Nacho Manzano, the son of the owners, returned from N Newsletters SUBSCRIBE MENU

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coast to start a restaurant. Gastronomes such as the Antelos love Casa

Marcial, which has been awarded two Michelin stars. So do locals, who
don’t dress up to eat there. But nobody more admires its modern Asturian
cuisine—fresh, briny seafood such as razor clams, but also the thick bean
stews of the mountain villages so pure and perfectly rendered—than other
chefs.

On this November night, half a dozen chefs from across Spain have
gathered to celebrate the restaurant’s 25th anniversary. They aren’t just
paying homage; they are actually cooking for Nacho and about 50 of us
diners. We eat plate after plate of food: more ham, roasted rabbit from the
hills around the restaurant, and the salty, rubbery sea cucumbers that I’ve
only had along the Spanish coast. By the time I head back over the
mountain to my hotel in seaside Gijón, we’re nearly five hours into
tomorrow.

Related: Check out these gorgeous photos of Spain.

Walking in the drizzle by the seawall where on summer days surfers

congregate, I pass a rowboat filled with predawn fishermen. When I look
around at where I am, and remember the mountain village I just left, José
Antelo’s description hits home. Asturias is like an entire country.
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4/4

The late afternoon sun glints off Eduardo Chillida’s “Elogio del Horizonte” sculpture in Gijón.
PHOTOGRAPHY BY CHIARA GOIA

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Returning to the region for the first time in years, I’d driven north from
Madrid a few days before. By the time I hit the A-66 highway, the mesa
around me had been flat and brown for hours. At the northern edge of the
province of León, I entered the Negrón tunnel—and emerged somewhere
else, a land all its own. The highway curved through a valley rimmed with
tall pines, past bulbous rock formations atop vertiginous slopes. I saw
homes with picture windows cantilevered over stone-paved streets and
ancient granaries perched on stilts. At times what I was seeing looked
more like Ireland than Spain. There had been no official sign of
demarcation when I passed from León to Asturias. It didn’t matter. I
hadn’t needed one.

Cultural capital meets fun-loving port

I was heading for the Asturian capital of Oviedo, a compact city of roughly
220,000 residents separated from the slightly larger Gijón by rapidly
encroaching suburbs. Each city has a proprietary social scene; you can be a
VIP in one and all but unknown in the other. Oviedo has the better
museums; Gijón has the beach. Twice a year, the Sporting Gijón and Real
Oviedo soccer teams bring the rivalry to life before a full stadium.

Most visitors come upon Oviedo first. They seek out some of the best pre-
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Romanesque architecture in the world, 14 preserved buildings, including
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q , 4p g , g
Why Spain’s Asturias is an under-the-radar destination

the tall, narrow ninth-century palace-church complex of Santa María del

Naranco. I make a pilgrimage there as soon as I arrive. I enter a vaulted

room made of stones the color of milk-clouded coffee. Only one other
person is here. The windows are cut thick into the walls of the building,
their shutters flung open to the breeze. I peer over a grove of trees and see
the city spread out below.

Within the hour I’m making my way through Oviedo and find sculptures, it
seems, on almost every corner; more than a hundred adorn the capital.
Before I reach my hotel, I pass “La Maternidad,” a rounded woman with an
equally rounded child by Colombian sculptor Fernando Botero, then
Miguel Ortiz Berrocal’s “El Diestro,” a metallic rendering of a bullfighter’s
torso. Later, in a residential neighborhood, I’ll discover a conference
center and office building designed by Santiago Calatrava that looks like a
massive winged creature about to take flight. The next day, I’ll be
transfixed by “El Regreso de Williams B. Arrensberg,” a statue of a trench-
coated friend of artist Eduardo Úrculo, surrounded by suitcases and
sporting a bemused expression as he gazes at the city’s cathedral.

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The medieval town of Llanes is one of the top summer destinations in Asturias.
PHOTOGRAPHY BY CHIARA GOIA

Oviedo’s artistic awakening has happened only over the last generation,
just as Nacho Manzano started drawing international attention to his small
restaurant in the mountains. The timing is no coincidence. “Before then,
we didn’t think Asturias had much to offer the world,” explains Esther
Manzano, Nacho’s sister, who has her own restaurant, La Salgar, in the
center of Gijón. “We didn’t believe in ourselves. We didn’t have fantastic
weather. We were very hard to get to—a long drive from anywhere, there
were no flights. We just assumed nobody would want to come.”

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Then two things happened: Europe’s new bargain airlines began flying
intrepid tourists here in the late 1990s; and Woody Allen’s 2008 film Vicky
Cristina Barcelona sent its characters to Oviedo for a weekend, causing
filmgoers around the world to turn to each other in surprise. Why
L O Gwould
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anyone leave Barcelona to visit … Asturias? “Woody Allen told the world

we exist,” Esther says. “He opened the world’s eyes, but he also opened our
eyes.” A statue of the controversial writer-director stands off Calle Uria.

Explore more: Here’s a quick guide to Málaga, Spain’s sixth largest city.

Tourism has helped raise the standard of living in Asturias, giving

restaurants like those run by Nacho and Esther Manzano a way to thrive.
But it hasn’t changed the nature of the place. Spain entertained more than
80 million visitors last year, enough to overrun many of its best known
places. Barcelona has become a set piece, far from the raucous port town it
used to be. Madrid seems like an international shopping mall.

Asturias, however, remains regional, strong flavored, authentic. Menus in

English are hard to find in Oviedo, and until recently they were all but
absent elsewhere in the region. José Andrés—the Asturian-born,
Washington, D.C.-based chef who has become a global sensation—wants to
open a restaurant not far from where he lived as a child. If he does, I’m
betting it won’t have an English menu either.

Asturias’s two largest cities are polar opposites. Oviedo, like many inland
cities, tends to be insular, conservative, overtly polite, and socially ADVERTISEMENT

inaccessible. Gijón is a port town, working-class and occasionally profane,

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but open to the sea and new ideas Oviedo has an opera house and a full
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but open to the sea and new ideas. Oviedo has an opera house and a full
program to fill it. Gijón prefers its series of avant-garde festivals. I’m
pleased that one of those festivals, Jazz Xixón, is under way at the Teatro
Jovellanos when I arrive. I buy a ticket to see the Portico Quartet, an
experimental band that was nominated for Britain’s Mercury Prize; other
headliners will include the playful Spanish group El Viaje del Swing (The
Journey of Swing). It’s easy to spot the blazing neon sign for Teatro
Jovellanos, mounted high above the pedestrian mall of Paseo Begoña.
Inaugurated in 1899, the theater was renovated shortly after the fall of
ruler Francisco Franco in 1975 and bought by Gijón in 1995. It has served
as a cultural centerpiece since.

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underneath an enormous crystal chandelier. Criado grew up in a small

inland town near Cangas de Onís before moving to Gijón. Now he wouldn’t
live anywhere else.

“It’s the youngest city in the region, and the freshest,” he says. “You find
that in our music, our cuisine, and our way of life.” When I ask him
whether he feels more Spanish or Asturian, he doesn’t hesitate. “Oh,
Asturian,” he says. “But really, I am from Gijón. What we are doing here
couldn’t happen in Oviedo.”

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12 / 12

In Playa de Campiechos, the setting sun and low tide reveal the entrance to a cave.
PHOTOGRAPHY BY CHIARA GOIA

The following morning I visit the Museum of the Asturian People, which
sits just east of downtown Gijón. It sounds like a Cold War tourist
attraction in an Eastern-bloc capital, but actually it’s a re-creation of a
traditional Asturian village. The grounds include a 17th-century peasant
house, a covered alley where the recreational bowling game called
cuatreada is played, a bagpipe museum (bagpipes are a common musical
instrument in Asturias and Galicia), and several of the granaries—called
hórreos—that are ubiquitous in the area. Inside the exhibition space, the
topic of the day is food. I am astonished to see how rudimentary the
kitchens were, even in urban areas, into the 1950s and 1960s.

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Many of the dishes made in those kitchens are now served at Esther
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Manzano’s restaurant La Salgar named after the Manzanos’ hometown A

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Manzano s restaurant, La Salgar, named after the Manzanos hometown. A

modern glass box attached to the museum, the restaurant isn’t officially
affiliated with it, but their missions are aligned. If Casa Marcial is where
the Manzano family adds an Asturian element to high gastronomy, La
Salgar rewards Asturians with deliciously familiar food amid Gijón’s
clamor. The idea was to have local diners taste quintessential versions of
dishes they’ve been eating all their lives, such as arroz con pitu, a version
of chicken, rice, and red pepper that every Asturian remembers from
childhood. “Dishes of the home,” Esther declares, “served in a restaurant.”

Caves, wines, and more discoveries

Like San Francisco and Scotland, bad weather suits Asturias. I leave Gijón
and head east along the coast under a steady drizzle. In August,
Ribadesella attracts Spaniards who are desperate for a respite from
oppressive heat. In November, with rain misting a cool morning, it
becomes a particularly lovely local fishing village. Kids splash through
puddles in the streets. Adults walk dogs. Shop owners stand in the
doorways greeting friends.

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Left: Fashioned with locally mined pink limestone, the Basilica de Santa María la Real de
Covadonga rises near the Holy Cave and its Virgin of Covadonga.

Right: Built in the 9th century as a royal palace, Santa Maria del Naranco, in Oviedo, became a
church in later years. In 1985, UNESCO designated the pre-Romanesque-style building a World
Heritage site.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY CHIARA GOIA

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Not far away is the Tito Bustillo Cave, site of one of the more remarkable
discoveries of the last century. In 1968 a group of amateur spelunkers
realized that falling rocks many centuries before had sealed an opening of
a cave. They returned with full gear and managed to make their way inside.
When they did, they were surprised to discover that one cave opened onto
another, and then another. On the walls, they found a magnificent series of
cave drawings, dating back more than 10,000 years. Another mysterious
drawing was made some 30,000 years ago, according to carbon dating.

Although the site has been validated by waves of experts, its existence
continues to raise more questions than have been answered. Why, I find
myself wondering, were drawings made in precisely the same place some
20,000 years apart?

I ponder that over lunch 15 minutes to the north, on a spit of beach. Güeyu
Mar restaurant is a glorified shack marked by a huge plastic kingfish
mounted over the doorway. Abel Alvarez, chef and owner, has been grilling
fish here since 2007.

His menu consists of whatever the boats have brought in that day,
supplemented by seafood in metal tins that Alvarez has preserved himself.
There’s no meat of any kind, nor rice or potatoes, just seafood and
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vegetables and excellent bread rolls. I eat razor clams and sardines, then

grilled cockles and kingfish. I drink Asturian wine, which barely existed a
decade ago, from the inland winery Dominio del Urogallo, the best of the
few producers clustered on the western side of the province. The blend of
three local red grape varieties has the stony freshness that I usually
associate with cool-climate whites. Crisp and salty, it tastes like the sea.

Rain is falling again; when I step outside I see a vivid rainbow arcing from
the trees atop the steep hills down to the water. Then I pivot inland. I stop
in the hill town of Cangas de Onís, where a much photographed Roman
bridge spans an unhurried stream.

From there the next morning, it’s a short trip to Covadonga, which is one
of the most historic spots in Spain. You could make the argument that
modern Spain began when the advance of the Moors was halted here by
the Visigoth nobleman Pelagius, the founder of the Kingdom of Asturias, in
718.

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Left: A man makes the most of a Sunday afternoon in Playa de Cadavedo by taking a leisurely
ride on a horse.

Right: Playa del Silencio’s long, silver-coved beach is ideal for strolling, but not swimming due to
the strong undercurrent.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY CHIARA GOIA

Spaniards needed nearly 800 more years before they expelled the Moors,
but the Battle of Covadonga marked the start of the reversal. The natural
setting is breathtaking, with a serpentine road leading up a canyon, past a
waterfall and then a small shrine. At the top, shimmering above
L Othe
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rises the majestic, pink-stone Basilica of Santa María la Real de

Covadonga.

I’ve visited before, but hadn’t taken the time to drive to the lakes above
Covadonga in the Picos de Europa (Peaks of Europe) National Park. Now
up another winding road I go, bound for those lakes. Trees fall away, and
the view opens to a wide sky of cotton ball clouds.

More experiences: Try these lesser-known hiking trails in Europe.

Then I hear bells. They start softly, but soon their metallic jangle has
drowned out the car radio. I round a bend and see sheep, what looks like
several hundred of them, painstakingly crossing the road in front of a line
of stopped cars.

I park and walk into the nearby brush, inhaling air so fresh that it sends a
jolt of sharpness into my chest. The spiky peaks of the mountain silently
surround me from a distance; all I hear is the din of the sheep bells,
sounding like church bells ringing at high noon. A driver honks a horn in
frustration, but that only makes the sheep stop in their tracks. LWith
OGIN
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deliberation they look around Satisfied that they can proceed they
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deliberation, they look around. Satisfied that they can proceed, they
resume their shuffle.
Eventually the stragglers get across. By now, the traffic probably snakes
around the bend and halfway down the mountain. I see the cars start to
move, but I can’t walk back just yet. The bells clank and the air crackles
and the peaks look like cathedral spires. Around me is a sea of sheep with
no shepherd in sight. I’ve never been anywhere like this. I don’t want to
leave.

Bruce Schoenfeld last wrote about the sparkling wines of Sussex, England, for
National Geographic Travel. This was his third visit to the region of Asturias,
and he is eager to plan another. Follow him on Twitter. Chiara Goia is an award-
winning photographer who has captured images in Mongolia, Cuba, and
Cambodia, as well as in her native Italy. Follow her on Instagram.

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Early spinosaur bones reveal the rise of a Did early humans interbreed with a What are hurricanes, typhoons, and
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