Oviedo: capital of the kingdom before the Reconquista

Built in the ninth century as a royal palace and later transformed into a church, Santa María del Naranco is considered a masterpiece of Asturian pre-Romanesque art, a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Just steps away, the Cathedral of Oviedo houses in the Cámara Santa relics considered among the most important of medieval Spanish Christianity.

Walking through the center you encounter the statues of the 'Route of Sculptures', including the famous 'Culis Monumentalis', often photographed by passers-by who pause to touch it for fun.

Toward evening, the sidrerías of the center pour Asturian cider from a height according to the traditional escanciado technique, to oxygenate the drink before drinking.

Asturias remains the only region of Spain never conquered during the eighth-century Muslim invasion, a fact local inhabitants still proudly recall in the motto 'Asturias is Spain, and the rest is reconquered land'.

Pouring cider from a height of nearly a meter is not an aesthetic flourish but a precise technique to aerate the drink, which would otherwise taste flat and lacking carbonation.