Romanesque art is represented all over the region because Asturias is the only peninsular kingdom that was not conquered by the Arabs in the VIIIth century, a reason why this zone had great importance for the later Christian Reconquest. In medieval times the Jacobean routes popularised the region all over Europe because it crossed Asturias, leaving behind religious monuments like the monastery of San Pedro de Villanueva and Santa Maria del Junco in Ribadesella. The cathedral of Oviedo is a witness of the arrival of the Gothic style to the region; and later centuries contributed to the regional art a multitude of palaces, Renaissance cloisters, neoclassic facades and modernist buildings that all emphasize a historical process in constant evolution.

Popular traditional art is also present in this autonomous community, which keeps its more ancestral traditions alive. The “horreos,” bread makers and stone cabins are a vivid testimony of a culture that has not succumbed absolutely to modernity. And the clay craftwork has a concrete sample in the Faro ceramics.

Milk makes Asturias one of the most important regions producing artisan cheeses in Europe: the one from Cabrales is most famous, in addition to being a fundamental ingredient in a very popular sweet, the rice with milk pudding. A popular Asturian dish in entire Spain is “fabada,” cooked stew with “fabes,” a type of bean, accompanied by garlic sausage, blood sausage, “lacon,” and bacon.

Gastronomy is a fundamental element of the Asturian idiosyncrasy, which has a rich variety of products like “potes,” red meats of cow and ox, trouts, salmons, seafood (sea urchins, spider crabs, “andaricas,” barnacles, “ñoclas”...), sea bream, and baked sea bass, are some of the plates that the innumerable restaurants of the zone offer to please the visitor´s tastes. The typical drink in Asturias is cider, an elaborated ancestral drink from apples with strong ties to everyday life, culture and leisure in the region. The village of Nava is one of the capitals of cider and celebrates an annual fair in which many professionals promote and commercialize this drink with exhibitions in the technological innovations of the sector are shown. Groups of bagpipes, typical instruments of the region, and many cider servers are there to liven up the evening.

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Gijon beach

Gastronomia: Fabada Asturiana