Asturias tourist information

Asturias boasts rolling green landscapes, isolated mountains, historic towns, enchanting fishing villages and wonderful food and drink. The Picos de Europa mountains are renown as a walkers paradise.
The Visigothic nobles and the Ibero-Romans who supported them took refuge from the Moors in Asturias. These Christians halted the Arab expansion at the Battle of Cobadonga in 722. Around 924, the Kingdom of Asturias became the Kingdom of Leon.

The rural nature of the region makes it attractive to visitors. Both coastal and inland Asturias are attractive and popular with tourists. The coast of Asturias is boasts attractive fishing towns and villages, from the bustling port of Luarca in the west, to the beautiful harbour of Cudillero. Ribadesella is located on the mouth of the River Sella. A famous canoe race ends here every year. Llanes is a charming and cheerful seaside resort in the east of the region.

Inland Asturias is green and has a rolling, often mountainous, landscape. The Cantabrian Mountains run along the whole north coast of Spain rise to their greatest heights here in the Picos de Europa. These mountains straddle Asturias, Cantabria and Leon and are home to the last Iberian brown bears, among other flora and fauna of importance. The Covadonga National Park was expanded to include most of the Picos in 1995. This aims to protect both their wildlife and the age-old way of life called transhumance.

Almost everyone in Asturias speaks Castilian Spanish, but the region has its own language, Asturian or Astur-Leonese, also called Bable in Asturian. It is not a thriving language in the same way as Basque or Catalan, and it is not an official language in the same way as they are, but is being kept alive.

History and Geography:
To trace Asturias´ historical origins one has to travel far back in time. To the Palaeolithic, the age of the great cave painters. Many centuries later the Roman Empire sought to colonise these lands, and after hard-fought wars, the Romans were finally able to set about their cultural and economic colonisation of the Asturs. Later the Moorish invasion left few scars on the Principality. Many years have since elapsed, but visiting Asturias means to feel its history.

Seventy-eight municipalities make up a region that covers over 10,500 square kilometres with a 375-kilometre strip of coastline. To the south lies the Picos de Europa National Park and to the north the coastal cliffs forming hundreds of beaches. Asturias has a population of 1,100,000 a mild climate and plentiful rainfall. Temperatures average around 12ºC in winter (except in mountain areas) and 20ºC in summer.

Cuisine
Evidence of the rich cuisine in Asturias can be found in the myriad of festivals held throughout the year. The regional dish is fabada (a slow cooked fava bean stew). Famous also are the cheeses especially those from Cabrales and Gamonedo. The coastal waters provide a variety of shellfish and the rivers boast an abundance of salmon and trout. Cider, poured ceremoniously from a bottle held overhead, is the main local beverage and desserts such as casadielles (made with walnuts) and frixuelos (sweet pancakes with honey) also should be sampled.
The gastronomy of Asturias naturally reflects the traditional way of life, and both beef and dairy products are excellent, one outstanding example of the areas cheeses being a particularly pungent blue cheese from Cabrales in the Picos de Europa.