{"id":657,"date":"2011-01-05T08:37:29","date_gmt":"2011-01-05T08:37:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.saints-hosting.org.uk\/sadfish\/visitgalicia\/?p=657"},"modified":"2011-01-05T08:37:48","modified_gmt":"2011-01-05T08:37:48","slug":"an-asturian-jewel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.visitgalicia.co.uk\/?p=657","title":{"rendered":"An Asturian jewel"},"content":{"rendered":"

Oviedo is the capital city of Asturias, founded in the eighth century, and the birthplace of formula one racing driver Fernando Alonso and Carmen Polo<\/a>, the wife of Spanish dictator General Franco.\u00a0It is located some 50km\u00a0south of the airport which often bears its name (actually Aeropuerto de Asturias) and which gets daily summer flights from London Stansted, 195km from the ferry port at Santander, and 177 km from our house in Li\u00f1eiras. We visited on our last trip spending a night at the Silken Monumental Naranco<\/a> and were enchanted by everything that this city has to offer, except perhaps its vinegar cider.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Oviedo Cathedral<\/p><\/div>\n

The Catedral Metropolitana Bas\u00edlica de San Salvador<\/a>\u00a0is located at the heart of the old town and an important\u00a0stopping off point\u00a0along the pilgrim route to Santiago de Compostela.\u00a0The cathedral is\u00a0a real mish-mash of architectural styles and it backs on to the monastery of St. Vincent (home to the archaeological museum of Asturias<\/a>) to form a large and impressive complex.<\/p>\n

During the Spanish Civil War the city was the location\u00a0of a famous seige<\/a>\u00a0when Colonel Antonio Aranda Mata<\/a>\u00a0held out for the Nationalists against the rebellion\u00a0for just under three months before being relieved by Francos army.<\/p>\n

The old and new parts of the city have many sculptures<\/a>\u00a0by varied artists including a life sized bronze sculpture of Woody Allen <\/a>, one of the finest comedy actors and directors of all time, who once said\u00a0 ‘Oviedo is delicious, exotic, beautiful, clean, pleasant, peaceful, and kind to pedestrians. It’s as if it doesn’t belong to this world, as if it could not possibly exist … Oviedo is like a fairy tale.’<\/em> Oviedo featured in the recent Allen directed movie \u00a0‘Vicky Cristina Barcelona’<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Woody loves Oviedo<\/p><\/div>\n

The city itself has all the bars, shops, hotels, sculptures\u00a0and cultural attractions\u00a0to fill\u00a0several days soaking in the atmosphere, admiring the sculptures and walking through the parks and meticulously kept streets.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Fresh from a good street cleanse<\/p><\/div>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Superb architecture<\/p><\/div>\n

Of course it does have its curiosities, as does every Spanish city, and around every corner is something to remind you of which quirky country you are in.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Religious icon anyone?<\/p><\/div>\n

Finally a photograph that it was impossible to resist taking (if only to ‘cock a snoop’ at our English pandering to environmental health). If the punchline wasn’t so obvious I’d use it for a\u00a0caption competition.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

The 'King Ham'<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Oviedo is the capital city of Asturias, founded in the eighth century, and the birthplace of formula one racing driver Fernando Alonso and Carmen Polo, the wife of Spanish dictator General Franco.\u00a0It is located some 50km\u00a0south of the airport which … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[42,8],"tags":[17,37,15,25,48],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.visitgalicia.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.visitgalicia.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.visitgalicia.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visitgalicia.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visitgalicia.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=657"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.visitgalicia.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":670,"href":"https:\/\/www.visitgalicia.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657\/revisions\/670"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.visitgalicia.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visitgalicia.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visitgalicia.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}