Village
Colunga is a concejo in the Oriente comarca of Asturias, between the Cantabrian Sea and the Sueve mountain range, with its capital in the town of the same name and settlements such as Lastres, Luces or Libardón; it has around 3,140 inhabitants. Its port of Lastres remains one of the main ports of Asturias, and next to that coast, known as the dinosaur coast, stands the Jurassic Museum. Near Gobiendes, where the church of Santiago stands, from the final phase of the pre-Romanesque, the caves of Obaya have yielded remains of hunters from the Middle and Upper Paleolithic, from around 40,000 years ago, and the concejo also preserves several pre-Roman hillforts, among them that of La Riera, with a defensive system of stepped terraces.
Monument
The Jurassic Museum of Asturias (MUJA) is located on the coastal platform of San Telmo, between Colunga and Lastres, on a stretch of the Asturian coast known as the Dinosaur Coast, where remains have been found of dinosaurs that inhabited the region some 150 million years ago, during the Jurassic. Opened in 2004, it occupies a building by architect Rufino García Uribelarrea shaped on the outside like a three-toed dinosaur footprint, whose three “toes” correspond to the three periods of the Mesozoic era; inside, a framework of wooden arches simulates a dinosaur's ribs. Its collection brings together around 8000 fossils from the Asturian Jurassic, including 255 ichnites, as well as replicas such as a pair of Tyrannosaurus rex and an Argentine Giganotosaurus.
Nature
La Griega beach, also known as Colunga beach, is the one closest to the municipality's capital, in eastern Asturias; the río Colunga or Libardón flows into it, forming a small meander that divides it in two. It is 750 metres long and has parking, showers, a lifeguard and restaurants; in July, during the festivities of Loreto, it hosts a lively jira. About 600 metres to the east, on its cliffs, lies a dinosaur ichnite site: footprints of large four-legged sauropods -some up to 1.30 metres in diameter, among the largest ever discovered in the world- left around 150 million years ago on what was then a muddy coastal lagoon, alongside other three-toed footprints of smaller bipedal dinosaurs.
Curiosity
The Lastres lighthouse stands in the village of Luces, parish of Lastres, in the municipality of Colunga (Asturias), on the plateau of Cabo de Lastres, 117 metres above sea level. It is the last lighthouse built in Asturias, operating since 1994; in September 2001 it was fitted with a new lens, giving it its current characteristic of five white flashes every 25 seconds. The enclosure, 1,200 square metres in size and closed off by a stone wall, houses a square-plan masonry building from which rises a white cylindrical tower 15 metres high. Its surroundings serve as a viewpoint over the cliffs and the fishing harbour that lies at its foot.
Nature
The dinosaur footprint site on La Griega beach, in Colunga, opens up in the cliffs located about six hundred metres east of the beach, reached via a path cut into the hillside from the bridge over the estuary. The footprints, protected as a natural monument, appear on a limestone stratum inclined toward the sea and correspond to the passage of giant quadrupedal dinosaurs, the sauropods, which moved across an ancient muddy coastal lagoon some one hundred and fifty million years ago; the trackway includes footprints 1.25 metres long, considered the largest of the Jurassic in the world. Nearby, on the same stratum, other tridactyl footprints can be made out, harder to identify, attributed to smaller bipedal dinosaurs.
Monument
A fishing village stepped up the cliff below the Sueve, a declared historic site; its steep alleys drop down to the harbour among the mansions of returned emigrants and come out at the San Roque viewpoint, above the Jurassic coast.
Monument
Located in the parish of Gobiendes, in the Asturian concejo of Colunga, it grew out of a medieval tower of the Mitra Ovetense, which held the place from the 10th century, when King Ordoño II donated the monastery of Santiago de Gobiendes. In 1579 Philip II detached the coto of Carrandi from the Crown and the following year sold it to Gonzalo Ruiz de Junco, alférez mayor of Colunga, whose family held the lordship until 1820. The building, with its 14th-century tower rebuilt on the former castle, was gradually enlarged until today it shows two perpendicular wings and a side chapel with a barrel vault, connected to the residence by a gallery. It has held the status of historic-artistic monument since 1973 and is declared a Bien de Interés Cultural (Spain's highest level of heritage protection).
Activity
Each February the village of Huerres celebrates the season of the oricio, the sea urchin gathered on the coast of Colunga during the winter and eaten raw or set in an omelette; the event brings together the devotees of this iodine-flavoured shellfish.