Village
Llanes is a port town in the Oriente comarca of Asturias, wedged between the Cuera mountain range and the Cantabrian Sea, already close to the Picos de Europa; it holds the title of Very Noble and Loyal Town and has around 13,500 inhabitants. It is built upon the ancient district of Aguilar, documented before the 12th century and linked to its castle, and in the 13th century the Puebla de Aguilar received a charter from Alfonso IX of León, thus giving rise to the town of Llanes. The Carrocedo river, which flows down from the Cuera mountain range, forms as it passes the ría on whose banks the town sits and where the port is located, which still retains some fishing activity; its quays display Ibarrola's Cubos de la Memoria. The coast, made up of cliffs and numerous beaches, also holds the inland beach of Gulpiyuri.
Monument
Of the enclosure raised in the 13th century, after the settlement charter granted by Alfonso IX, what survives is above all the northern stretch of a perimeter of around 840 metres; its round tower was declared a Monumento Nacional (Spain's heritage designation in force until 1931) in 1876.
Monument
Built between the 13th and 15th centuries through the effort and money of local residents, it is one of the few examples of Gothic architecture preserved in Asturias; Paul VI granted it the title of minor basilica in 1973. The works, begun in 1240, shaped a basilica-plan temple with three naves and three apses, covered with a star-ribbed vault. It preserves two heavily splayed Romanesque doorways, a bell tower and a 16th-century porch protecting the south entrance. In the north wall stands the 14th-century funerary chapel of Juan Pariente, with a Mannerist altarpiece, while the central nave holds a large Plateresque altarpiece.
Curiosity
An intervention by the Basque painter Agustín Ibarrola on the concrete blocks of the harbour breakwater: more than three hundred cubes painted in two phases, the first unveiled in November 2001 and the second in December 2006.
Nature
Next to Llames de Pría, in the municipality of Llanes, lies the largest field of bufones in Asturias, the westernmost group on the Asturian coast: chimneys bored by the sea into the limestone rock, a few metres from the edge of the cliff, which connect at their base with the sea. When the tide rises and the waves crash hard, they shoot upward columns of spray that can exceed ten metres in height, accompanied by a roar audible several kilometres away. It forms part of the Protected Landscape of the Eastern Coast of Asturias and is protected as a natural monument.
Nature
Gulpiyuri beach is a small beach in the municipality of Llanes, north of the village of Naves, declared a natural monument on 26 December 2001 and included in the Protected Landscape of the Eastern Coast of Asturias. It can only be reached on foot, from San Antolín beach or from Naves, which has favoured its good state of conservation. It is a doline: on a cliff-lined limestone coast, the sea hollowed out a cave whose roof eventually collapsed, leaving a circular hollow about 50 metres in diameter, located 100 metres inland, still connected to the coast by galleries through which seawater enters, so that the tides can be felt without the sea itself being visible. The depth only allows bathing lying down, but the beach is sheltered from the wind.
Nature
Torimbia beach, in the village of Niembro, municipality of Llanes, is a shell-shaped stretch of sand around five hundred metres long, enclosed by a cliff over 50 metres high and classified as a natural beach within the Protected Landscape of the Eastern Coast of Asturias. It can only be reached by crossing Niembro and walking the last two kilometres along a narrow sand path; at low tide, the beaches of Portacos and Peñadrada can be reached from it. Its width varies with the tides between 76 and 100 metres, the bathing depth does not exceed a metre and a half, and the waters, free of rocks and seaweed, have little current and a low degree of danger. In the 1960s it became the first nudist beach in Asturias and remains a naturist landmark.
Monument
A Neolithic group of paintings and engravings on a sandstone block at the end of the Sierra Plana de la Borbolla, in Puertas de Vidiago, municipality of Llanes; among the figures the schematic human one that gives the idol its name stands out. The rock, facing east, forms a natural shelter that has protected the paintings from the weather to this day. Although known since ancient times by the inhabitants of the nearby villages, it was not the subject of the first archaeological research until 1914, after having become known in 1913; the site was declared a Monumento Nacional (a former Spanish heritage-protection category, now equivalent to Bien de Interés Cultural) in 1924.
Nature
An inland beach set back from the coast, with no visible opening to the sea, which fills through underground galleries cut in the limestone; the karst complex was declared a natural monument on 5 December 2001.
Monument
Raised in 1885 in the village of Pendueles with money brought from America by returned emigrants, it is one of the outstanding examples of indiano architecture of eastern Asturias and presides over the village beside the coast road.
Activity
A ritual that accompanies the festivities of the villa: the young men fell a large eucalyptus in the hills, bring it down to the village and plant it in the centre, where it stays upright throughout the days of celebration.