Exploring Gozón

 8.10.2013

 

We still are getting some summery days here, and I seized the chance of a sunny Sunday to hike out to the east, across the Ría de Avilés where I had not gone yet, into the neighboring district of Gozón. It was a beautiful day, and I walked about 16 miles.

 

The Niemeier Center in Avilés, as I began the walk. It was constructed only two years ago, on what had been a bit of mid-twentieth century industrial wasteland.

 

 

In 1950, Avilés still was just mostly what is now the historic district of the city, and it had about 10,000 inhabitants. In the late 1950s and 1960s, Franco decided to make it a center of heavy industry, and mills and factories like this one were constructed all along the river valley running south from the city. And the population exploded to 100,000. Think Youngstown or the Kanawha Valley. Most of them now are abandoned hulks, but this one - unfortunately close to the city - still is belching columns of smoke and soot, which the wind often carries across the river into Avilés. On this beautiful day, an acrid scent hung in the air until I nearly was to the coast. There are not many bad things about living here, but the air pollution is one of them. I always keep my windows facing the direction of this mill closed, otherwise, everything gets coated in soot.

 

Walking through the industrial areas on the other side of the river. "This street is happier when a star passes smiling."

 

The green energy economy has come a little to Avilés. There is a company across the river that produces the towers for Siemens wind turbines.

 

The estuary at low tide...

 

...and at high tide, when I passed by on my way back to Avilés.

Along the road near Zeluán.

 

La Playa de Xagó.

 

The chapel near the village of Xagó.

 

Houses in the village of Xagó.

 

And an excellent Panera (same as an hórreo, but with more than four pillars).

 

A pasture with a view.

 

Blackberries! Snack time.

 

On the bluffs which run from Xagó back to the mouth of the Ría de Avilés. I felt as if I had somehow walked to Ireland. No wonder the ancient Celts liked it here. The peninsula in the background is Cabo Peñas, the northernmost point in Asturias. If you look at a map, it is the bump sticking out into the Bay of Biscay between Avilés and Gijon.

 

A happy walker.

 

From Xagó, I made my way along farm roads back toward the mouth of the river and the Faro de Avilés - the Avilés lighthouse.

 

An old anchor in the yard of the lighthouse.

 

It is quite a drop from the lighthouse to the bay.

 

The view up the bluff from the lighthouse. I thought that was some kind of hermitage up there...

...but when I arrived, I discovered that it was a civil war era sentry box, with coastal gun emplacements beyond.

 

 

Along the bluffs, returning to Xagó.

 

La Playa de Xagó from the bluff.

 

I believe its fishing days are long over.

 

The Alcoa Aluminum smelter between Xagó and Zeluán.

 

Carbonate deposits near the Alcoa smelter.

 

And a little miscellany.

 

These are two slate fossils I found scrambling up a steep hillside from the sea on my earlier hike along the Senda Norte.

 

Old women watching it rain, across the courtyards out my kitchen window.

 

Calle Galiano in Avilés. It is the longest arcaded walkway in the city.

 

 

The cloister at la Iglesia de San Nicolás de Bari in Avilés. It is now a primary school.

The Plaza de Carbayedo in Avilés is now a little park, but until the 1930s it was the city livestock market. This sculpture honors the Asturian farmers who used to come there to buy and sell their cattle.