Getting to know Asturias while learning Spanish

San Francisco Park, in the heart of Oviedo

The Principality of Asturias is situated on the Spanish north coast, facing the Cantabrian Sea (Bay of Biscay). Asturias’ awesome geography is inextricable from its history. The isolation resulting from being surrounded by steep mountains – the Cantabrian Range with its Peaks of Europe - and a turbulent sea helped the former kingdom, where the Reconquista began, to retain its peculiar traditions, culture and legends. With its lakes, peaks, forests which include a number of protected Natural Reserves, some of which have been recognized by UNESCO as Biosphere Reserves, and its breathtaking coastline, known as the Costa Verde (Green Coast) Asturias has a wealth of landscape to see.

The Gothic Cathedral

Oviedo, the capital city, booming with statues, museums and architectural heritage, is a cultural center which appeals to visitors from all over the world, as a crossroads for the Camino de Santiago and the Ruta de la Plata. Not to miss are the city’s old quarter, with the Gothic Cathedral and its Holy Chamber, and the centuries-old pre-Romanesque buildings declared World Cultural Heritage by UNESCO since 1985. The Campoamor Theater hosts a varied cultural offer including operas, zarzuelas, musical festivals, art exhibitions, and the annual Prince of Asturias Awards. This prestigious event recognizes international achievement in eight categories. Among award winners are Margaret Atwood, Paul Auster, J.K.Rowling, Susan Sontag, Woody Allen, Al Gore and many other outstanding personalities.

Statue of Woody Allen

Leopoldo Alas, Clarín

Clarin's Monument in San Francisco Park, Oviedo

Leopoldo García-Alas y Ureña (Clarín), author of La Regenta, was actually born in Zamora but being of Asturian descent, he came to live in Oviedo - nicknamed Vetusta in La Regenta- at the age of 13, and he considered the city his hometown.

During his all too short life (25 April 1852 - 13 June 1901), this prolific writer -currently acclaimed as one of the most formidable Spanish writers of all times - led a sort of double-life, in the words of one of his disciples, renown Spanish writer Ramón Pérez de Ayala, he had "a double personality - that of the professor and that of the writer ... Leopoldo Alas was the university professor, Clarin the writer. The personality of the latter cannot be really understood if the personality of the former is unknown, for Clarin was, first and foremost, Leopoldo Alas, that is, the teacher".

Our Spanish courses will help you discover more about the works and deeds of this Asturian writer, who, when confronted with the fact of his birth in Zamora ironically declared: "Me nacieron en Zamora".

In Spanish, this statement would normally be in active voice: "Nací en Zamora", but Clarín used a passive construction to signal the accidental nature of his birth beyond the borders of his beloved "tierrina" (as Asturians call their "little homeland").

La Regenta in Vetusta

Immortalized in the back yard where she used to stroll with a book in her hand while Magistral Don Fermin spied her from the Cathedral's tower, visitors to Oviedo are intrigued by this statue of the beautiful and romantic Ana Ozores, married to elderly aristocrat don Víctor de Quintanar, who prefers hunting to satisfying his young wife's emotional and spiritual needs. No wonder Ana becomes an innocent prey to "Don Juan" Álvaro Mesía, but in the end she is lonelier than ever, a victim of the hypocrisy of Vetusta's (19th century) society.

In this fragment of the film based on Clarín's masterpiece (in Spanish) the intrigues that led to Ana's fall are masterfully portrayed.

Clarin's Route - a perfect blend of Nature and Literature

Quinta Clarín in Guaimarán

For more than forty years Clarin spent his summers at his country house Quinta de la Rebollada in Guaimarán, a parish of the Carreño Municipality at the center of the Asturian Cantabrian coast. The meadows, country houses and the people of Carreño were inmortalized in many pages of the illustrous writer's short stories and novels. Even in La Regenta, nearby seaside town Candás is "Palomares", where she spends the summer.

The route is made up of three sections linked to three short stories: Doña Berta (Candás-Piedeloro), A Round Trip (Guamirán-Logrezana) and Boroña (Guaimarán-Prendes). Along the routes you can stop and read passages mirroring the surroundings. It is a perfect opportunity for students interested in Spanish literature to "live" what they have previously read or heard about, while enjoying the lush green landscapes.

To be read along the way