Village
Carreño is a coastal concejo of Asturias, next to Cape Peñas, whose capital is the seafaring town of Candás, which lived off the fishing port and the canning factories. It gathers about 10,300 inhabitants, and its highest point is Mount Areo, at 264 metres, in whose megalithic necropolis funerary remains from around 3000 BC have been found. In the Middle Ages it belonged to the lands of Gauzón and the alfoz of Avilés, until in the 13th century it became an autonomous concejo. It preserves the church of Santa María de Piedeloro, at the foot of Mount Areo, and celebrates the feast of the Santísimo Cristo de Candás in September. Its coast hosts a rich fauna of seabirds, and its mountains produce the apple used to make cider.
Monument
A church of Romanesque origin from the 13th century with a single nave in Piedeloro, in the concejo of Carreño, which underwent major remodelling in the 17th and 18th centuries, from which date the current square chancel, the porch surrounding the west and south façades, and the sacristy. It is one of the few temples of Asturian Romanesque architecture with three doorways: the north one is now walled up, the south one displays a pointed double-archivolt arcade with geometric decoration, and the west one, set on a projecting body, preserves three decorated archivolts, one of whose jambs shows a human figure. The interior, damaged during the Civil War, had its wooden roof replaced by a barrel vault with lunettes, and preserves the triumphal arch that separates the apse from the nave. It was declared a Bien de Interés Cultural (Spain's highest level of heritage protection) on 9 January 1995.
Monument
Sanctuary of the Santísimo Cristo, with a monumental façade topped by a pediment and flanked by two towers, in a neo-Baroque temple built after the Civil War on the site of the previous one, founded in the 10th century and donated by King Fruela II to the cathedral of Oviedo in 912. The venerated image is a copy of the original, burned in 1936; a 13th-century Christ at the Column is preserved, along with part of the original Romanesque chapel behind the high altar. The Christ of Candás, found according to tradition on the coast of Ireland in the 16th century, is the patron of the Asturian fishermen's guilds and is celebrated on 14 September with the Alborada and a procession; the patron saint of the town, San Félix, is celebrated on 1 August together with the Sardine Festival.
Monument
A seigneurial tower of the 14th and 15th centuries built in the village of Prendes, square in plan and with ashlar walls. It is the clearest surviving evidence in Carreño of the defensive architecture of the Asturian medieval nobility.
Monument
A small 16th-century church raised by the town in thanksgiving after it escaped an outbreak of plague. It is still one of the focuses of devotion in the old quarter of Candás and one of the oldest religious buildings in the municipality.
Nature
The necropolis of Monte Areo is an archaeological site straddling the concejos of Carreño and Gijón, on a sierra close to the coast that does not exceed 300 metres in altitude. A 1990 survey located more than thirty Neolithic tumuli and dolmens there, built with alternating layers of earth and stone, spread along a ridge more than four kilometres long, in the parishes of El Valle and Guimarán, both north and south of the sierra. The groups of tombs probably belonged to different communities, each settled in its own territory. It is the largest megalithic necropolis in Asturias and has been declared a Bien de Interés Cultural (Spain's highest level of heritage protection) as an archaeological zone since 1997.
Curiosity
A tourist residential town built by the Obra Sindical de Educación y Descanso on more than 20 hectares facing the Cantabrian Sea, near Candás, in the concejo of Carreño. Opened in 1954, it was one of the regime's three trade-union towns, along with those of Tarragona (1957) and Marbella (1962), and it experienced its heyday in the sixties and seventies, when it came to house two thousand summer holidaymakers per shift -workers from mining and steelmaking- in more than two hundred and seventy dwellings of 35 types, bathed by the beaches of Huelgues, La Isla, Los Curas and Carranques. In 1982 its management passed to the Principality of Asturias, which ceased its activity in 2006. Since then it has been abandoned: today it survives in ruins as a ghost complex by the sea.
Activity
A cinema-theatre built in Candás, capital of the concejo of Carreño, amid the demographic growth of the 1950s linked to the steel industry of Avilés and Gijón; its architect was José Antonio Muñiz Muñiz. Opened on 1 January 1956 with the screening of Cuando ruge la marabunta, it passed into municipal ownership in 1989 and from 1994 expanded its programme to include theatre, concerts and exhibitions until it became the cultural engine of the municipality, being the only Asturian cinema that never closed. It hosts regular events such as the Salón de Teatro Costumbrista Asturiano, since 1991, and the Festival de Cine de Aventuras y de la Mar al Aire Libre. It is a functionalist brick building, with a large concrete window on the main façade, included in the Docomomo Ibérico catalogue.
Activity
They are held on 14 September and begin at dawn with La Alborada, a tribute to the men of the sea. They honour an image which, according to tradition, was found floating off the coast of Ireland by whalers from Candás in the 16th century.
Nature
A semi-urban beach of golden sand which at low tide reaches some 800 metres long by seventy-five wide, at the western end of the municipality. The coastal footpath links it with the coves of Perlora and with the Aboño estuary.
Nature
Carranques beach, one of the three that make up the parish of Perlora, in the concejo of Carreño, together with those of Huelgues and La Isla, opens onto a stretch of the Asturian Costa Central distinguished by its coves, caves and abundant vegetation, and which still does not appear among the protected areas of Asturias. It is reached by a staircase next to a car park near a campsite. It forms part of a developed seafront promenade that starts at Candás beach and reaches those of Xivares, Peña María and Aboño, and has shower facilities, lifeguard service in summer, and a children's and sports area.
Curiosity
At the end of July Candás grills sardines in the street for almost a week, in an event that champions the oily fish on which its salting and canning factories were built and which still rules the harbour's calendar.
Monument
The Museo Antón, a publicly owned sculpture centre, is housed in the eighteenth-century Estrada-Nora manor house, in the centre of Candás, and opened its doors on 13 July 1989. The ground floor holds the storeroom and three temporary exhibition rooms; the first floor is devoted to the work of Antonio Rodríguez García, Antón, a sculptor born in the town, and the second floor houses the library and multipurpose rooms. Its collection, of 350 works mostly donated by the artist's family, brings together creations from 1928 to 1936, among them Mi Güela, La Seña Isabel, Rapacina, Antroxu and Fin de Romería. It combines this permanent collection with exhibitions and sculpture workshops.
Activity
In September the town honours the image that, according to legend, some fishermen found at sea; on the 14th comes the dawn serenade with a floral offering, and the week includes the singular bullfight held on the sand of the beach.
Food and drink
The port of Candás has lived for more than a century from fish canning; its factories work the anchovy and the bonito of the Cantabrian season and explain the industrial look of a small fishing town.
Monument
A museum devoted to the sculptor from Candás Antonio Rodríguez García, “Antón” (1911-1937), inaugurated on 13 July 1989 in the 18th-century Estrada-Nora family mansion, in Candás, concejo of Carreño. The building is laid out on a ground floor, with a storeroom and three temporary exhibition rooms, a first floor, devoted to Antón's work, and a second floor, with a library and multipurpose rooms. It holds around 350 works by the sculptor, all created between 1928 and 1936 and largely donated by his family and heirs, among which pieces such as “Mi Güela”, “La Seña Isabel” or “Antroxu” stand out; it also displays pieces outdoors in its garden. The museum awards a 6,000-euro grant every year, which in 2011 went to the photographer Cristina Ferrández.
Curiosity
One of the most singular customs of the north: during the September festivities, Candás sets up its bullring on the sand of the beach, so that the bullfight is held literally facing the sea and with the tide setting the timetable.