Pravia

14.10.2013

 

On Columbus Day (US Columbus day - here they celebrate it on his actual birthday, 12 October), I took a bus to the town of Pravia, in the district of Pravia, 24km west of Avilés. It is a lovely town, nestled in the hills by the Río Nalón. It is ancient. There was a prehistoric settlement on the site and a Roman settlement, and the town briefly was the capital of Asturias in the eighth century during the reign of King Silo. There are many medieval and eighteenth-century buildings in the town.

 

But before I explored the town, I hiked out to see la Iglesia de San Juan Apóstol y Evangelista in the village of Santianes. King Silo had it built in 780. It is the first Asturian Pre-Romanesque style church I have seen.  I now am doubly-inspired to get down to see the finest examples of it near Oviedo.

 

An Indiano house on the way to Santianes.

 

The Santianes cemetery.

 

These explanatory signs are a good opportunity for the non-Spanish-speaking viewers to try Google Translate!

 

I believe the Renault was added a while after the eighth century.

 

The church suffered a nineteenth-century renovation, and this bell tower was among the things added.

 

 

One of the Pre-Romanesque keyhole windows (which is about eight feet off the ground).

 

I did my best Reinhold Messner impersonation and scaled a bit of the wall to look inside. I must go back when I can get in.

 

The Palacio de Salas, next to the church. I rang the bell and asked whether they had the key to the church, but the lady who answered the bell said it is at the tourist office in Pravia. Next time.

 

On a building across the street from the church.

 

 An Indiano house across the street from the church.

I was pleased to see that the road looped back to Pravia, so I could walk through the countryside (and some beautiful, very old villages) rather than returning the way I had just come.

A fountain and lavandera (a community clothes-washing pool, from the centuries before individual plumbing) between Santianes and the village of San Antonio.

 

San Antonio, which I really, really liked.

 

I glimpsed this little chapel, sitting high on a hill in the distance, as I was walking past the cemetery before Santianes, and I decided then that I would walk up to it. It was a good choice. Just below the chapel is a little park with great views down at San Antonio and back to the church. I sat there on a picnic table and ate some grapes.

 

San Antonio.

 

The church and Palacio de Salas.

A farmhouse, with hórreo, on the way down from the chapel.

Río Nalón, from a footbridge on the way back to Pravia.

Farmhouse door on the outskirts of Pravia.

 

There even is Oktoberfest in Grado (which is a city further to the south, where I stopped on my first night when I was walking the Camino in April). I believe this is the first Oktoberfest poster I have seen in which the girl has brown hair. But the Dirndl looks authentic.

 On Plaza Marquesa de Casa Valdés in Pravia.

 

 

The Ayuntamiento (city hall).

 

Gate to a house on the Plaza.

 

The "Fountain of the Six Towns (of the district of Pravia)" on the Plaza.

Looking away from the Plaza.

 

Calle Jovellanos (the ancient Royal Street) in Pravia.

 

Houses and buildings in Pravia.

 

Statue of King Silo on the main square.

At the base of the statue is this copy of a stone in the floor of the church at Santianes. The Latin inscription "Silo Princeps Fecit" (Silo Built It) can be read 1000 different ways. He also was buried in it, though there is a dispute over whether his remains still are there or were moved to a different church.

 

 

Houses across the square from Palacio de Moutas.

 

A slot to insert alms for the poor, in the wall of the Colegiata.

 

A lovely spot on Calle Jovellanos...

 

 
...to take an equally-lovely lunch. The Asturians certainly know what to do with a hog.

 

A happy traveler.

 

 

I saw this (on the wall of the rail station platform) for the first time when I returned to Avilés with the Feve train. It is a tile map of three Camino de Santiago routes: the Coastal, the Primitivo and the Francés. I can't wait to get out there again. I am thinking the western half of the Coastal - which runs in front of my apartment - in May. Like a medieval pilgrim, I will walk out my front door, and on to Santiago de Compostela, 200 miles away.