Avilés

Industrial town of medieval heart

Aviles, once an old fishing village, is now a modern city and has become a center of international cultural activity.

Plan your visit to Avilés

No longer is Aviles an ugly industrial city, recovering from the steel crisis. There is much to see in Aviles, plus an excellent nightlife and cultural activities in the great center Niemeyer. After spending a day touring the city, you can make day trips to places as attractive as Gijón and Candás (east) or the beautiful fishing village of Cudillero (west). Nature lovers can spend whole days touring Cape Peñas very near the western coast landscapes.

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The name “Aviles” probably comes from the Roman Abilius. The town is also known as “La Villa del Adelantado” in honor of Pedro Menendez de Aviles (1519 -1574), the first Governor, whose figure is honored with a monument located in the Parque del Muelle.

The town of Aviles was first mentioned at the beginning of the tenth century, in the will of the Asturian King Alfonso III the Magnanimous. In the eleventh century, King Alfonso VI granted the town a charter and category of “Villa de Realengo”. It is the moment in history of Aviles in which it was walled and began to enrich itself by its monopoly on the salt trade and through its port.

In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries the town suffered two serious crisis, a major fire and attacks by French and English privateers, but also achieved a profit authorization to trade with America. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries there was another major fire and three earthquakes.

In the late nineteenth urban and industrial expansion promoted the draining of the marshes, currently located where the park is Pier, the Market Square and some remarkable buildings in the historical district.

The return of some emigrants to America, the so-called “Indians,” greatly enhanced the urban development of the town, and so Aviles became one of the first cities in northern Spain in the modernization of services such as streetlights, trains, using the telephone, the tram network, etc.

Que ver en Avilés

Palace of the Marquis Camposagrado

Towards the middle of the twentieth century large metallurgical factories that multiplied its population with workers from many parts of Spain they were established, which led to an industrial expansion that gave rise to various centers of residence on the outskirts of the city. Aviles then became the most polluted city in Spain but fortunately, thanks to the environmental recovery of the river and the old town, the city re-merged in a new stage, more linked to tourism, especially culturally. Its role as a filmmaking scene of the film Vicky Cristina Barcelona, by Woody Allen, and international personalities who have gathered in the Niemeyer Center, have been some of the factors of development of this new orientation of the villa.

Avilés is the third largest city in the Principality of Asturias, which saw increase its population and territory from the installation, in the fifties, as Ensidesa steel firms. Despite its recent industrial past, the city has civil and religious buildings of great artistic value, covering different periods and styles, from Romanesque to Modernism. The Galiana, Rivero, Ferrería and San Francisco’s streets attest to its past with arcades typical and important buildings. Its historic center has been declared a Historic-Artistic.
We propose to start the visit from the Avenue Looms, where the train and bus from the villa are located. Before going into the intramural Aviles we can visit the picturesque neighborhood of Sabugo, ancient suburb of fishermen nestled on a gentle hill. Taking Street Station reach the Old Church of Sabugo or of Santo Tomas (XII-XIII centuries), an interesting Romanesque to Gothic transition building, of Cultural Interest. West is famous for its cover with beautiful capitals decorated with animals, plants and anthropomorphic motifs. Outside you can still see the Table of Merchants, where the Brotherhood of Merchants of Avilés, founded in the thirteenth century, held its meetings and agreements.

For Street Carreño Miranda, illustrious Asturian painter in the court of Charles II, you get to Pier Park, created late last century on land reclaimed from the estuary. This is a secluded park nineteenth-century air, with its bandstand, fountains and allegorical statues, most notably the Monument to Don Pedro Menendez (1916-1918), in advance of the villa, designed by Manuel Garci-González, who won the battle by public tender the Asturian sculptor Victor Hevia and the joint project of Julio Antonio and Sebastian Miranda.

From Pier Park, you cross the river, you reach the former grounds of Ensidesa, where now stands the Niemeyer Center, one of the main cultural revolting city, housed in a complex of buildings designed by the Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer , and which have been internationally recognized characters like Brad Pitt, Woody Allen, Kevin Spacey, Julian Schnabel and Carlos Saura. The project was conceived with the idea of regenerating Avilés and its estuary of the hand of a landmark set and unique work in Spain architect creator of Brasilia.

ImagenCL_asturias_aviles_bi

Avilés is the third largest city in the Principality of Asturias, which saw increase its population and territory from the installation, in the fifties, as Ensidesa steel firms. Despite its recent industrial past, the city has civil and religious buildings of great artistic value, covering different periods and styles, from Romanesque to Modernism. The Galiana, Rivero, Ferrería and San Francisco’s streets attest to its past.

We propose to start the visit from the Avenue Looms, where the train and bus from the villa are located. Before going into the intramural Aviles we can visit the picturesque neighborhood of Sabugo, ancient suburb of fishermen nestled on a gentle hill. Taking Street Station, reach the Old Church of Sabugo or of Santo Tomas (XII-XIII centuries), an interesting Romanesque to Gothic transition building, of Cultural Interest. It is famous for its cover with beautiful capitals decorated with animals, plants and anthropomorphic motifs. Outside you can still see the Table of Merchants, where the Brotherhood of Merchants of Avilés, founded in the thirteenth century, held its meetings and agreements.

For Street Carreño Miranda, illustrious Asturian painter in the court of Charles II, you get to Pier Park, created late last century on land reclaimed from the estuary. This is a secluded park with a nineteenth-century air, with its bandstand, fountains and allegorical statues. You can see the Monument to Don Pedro Menendez (1916-1918), in advance of the villa, designed by Manuel Garci-González, who won the battle by public tender the Asturian sculptor Victor Hevia and the joint project of Julio Antonio and Sebastian Miranda.

From Pier Park, if you cross the river, you reach the former grounds of Ensidesa, where now stands the Niemeyer Center, one of the main cultural revolting city, housed in a complex of buildings designed by the Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer , and which have been internationally recognized through people like Brad Pitt, Woody Allen, Kevin Spacey, Julian Schnabel and Carlos Saura. The project was conceived with the idea of regenerating Avilés and its estuary of the hand of a landmark set and unique work in Spain architect creator of Brasilia.

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Practical Data

Coordinates

43° 18′ 13.98″ N, 4° 48′ 55.11″ W

Distances

Oviedo 36 km, Santander 201 km, Madrid 481 km


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