5 fantastic museums to visit in Asturias

There are a thousand ways to get to know Asturias and without a doubt one of the most interesting and enjoyable is through its museums. A tour of five fantastic museums will not only inject culture into your restless spirit, but will also encourage you to get to know more and more of this land of endless attractions.

The itinerary we propose to you through these five fantastic museums will take you deep into the bowels of Mother Earth and will lead you to learn all about the legend and reality of coal; it will project you into the Prehistory and History of Asturias, which has contributed so much to the development of the European continent; It will reveal dozens and dozens of ethnographic secrets of Asturias, helping you to discover an ancient way of life full of ingenuity and eagerness to survive; you will travel to the Jurassic period, when dinosaurs populated these lands, and if you are an art lover, you will take a fascinating journey through all its ages.

In fact, in just five museums you'll cover the whole arc of life, on a cultural path that you'll want to travel over and over again... and at every turn you'll discover something new.

We show you five fantastic museums to visit in Asturias: the Fine Arts Museum, the Archaeological Museum, the Museum of the People of Asturias, the Mining Museum, and the Jurassic Museum. Five stops, five moments, five landmarks, five memories, five reasons to return to a land that in itself is a great and documented open-air museum...

Museum of Fine Arts of Asturias or a tour of art over seven centuries

In little more than 35 years of history, the Asturias Museum of Fine Arts has established itself as one of the most varied collections in Spain, offering you a great tour of different trends and authors, from the 14th century to the 21st century.

In fact, a visit to the Museum of Fine Arts is no more and no less than a highly enjoyable journey through the art of seven centuries. This Museum currently has one of the best public art collections in the country, comprising more than 15,000 pieces, whose authors are such outstanding names in the history of art as El Greco, Zurbarán, Ribera, Murillo, Carreño de Miranda, Goya, Miguel Jacinto and Luis Meléndez, Sorolla, Luis Fernández, Picasso, Dalí, Miró, Tàpies and Barceló.

But what is more, this museum not only has an exceptional content, but the container is also exceptional. In the heart of the historic centre of Oviedo, the Bellas Artes occupies two 18th century buildings, the Palacio de Velarde and the Oviedo-Portal house, and has recently undergone an extension and refurbishment by the architect Francisco Mangado, making it a unique architectural model, which this year has been awarded two prizes: the Chicago Athenaeum, for innovative, creative, sustainable and environmentally responsible design, and the RIBA Award International Excellence, for being an example of innovation in design, architectural excellence and for having a significant impact on its social and geographical scope.

At the Bellas Artes your artistic stroll will be truly enjoyable not only for the contemplation of the works of art, but also for the enjoyment of the space, as well as for the beautiful views you have of the Cathedral Square and the historic centre of Oviedo.

In addition, the Bellas Artes frequently holds talks, workshops and all kinds of activities related to art.

Archaeological Museum of Asturias: showing the certainties of History

The Archaeological Museum of Asturias is a must on your cultural tour. As in the case of the Fine Arts Museum, the Archaeological Museum is absolutely valuable for its content and also for its container.

The building that houses the Museum is the former convent of San Vicente, directly linked to the origins of the city of Oviedo, as it was precisely during the reign of Fruela I, back in 761, when two monks named Máximo and Fromestano founded a convent in a deserted place, in what would one day be the capital of Asturias.
A curious and rich history for a truly dazzling exhibition, both for the organisation of knowledge and for the precision and informative sense.

A walk through the Archaeological Museum will take you on a journey from prehistoric times to the Middle Ages, passing through the Age of Metals, the Castros period and Roman Asturias. You will learn about the different ages of Humanity in an agile and simple way, and all in a very pleasant exhibition space, full of light, where each window transports you to ancient Oviedo, always with the Cathedral and its Romanesque tower as a backdrop.

The first floor is dedicated to the different prehistoric periods: Palaeolithic, Neolithic and the Copper and Bronze Ages. It makes special reference to the Neanderthals, the Cantabrian Palaeolithic furniture art, the ancient copper mines of the Sierra del Aramo and the idol of Peña Tu. One of the curiosities is a life-size replica of the figure of a Neanderthal woman, which has been made in such detail that it looks like the real thing!

The first floor is dedicated to the period of the castros, fortified villages built during the Iron Age that continued to be occupied during the Roman period, in the gold mining areas. Finally, the upper floor is that of Romanisation in Asturias, both in the castros and in the villae and civitates. In this part it is worth seeing the details of the model of the La Carisa camp, where you will find out how the Roman camps were formed. In this room there is also a spectacular geometric mosaic from the Roman period. The third floor immerses you in the Middle Ages. You will find a recreation of the central chapel of a pre-Romanesque church and the sarcophagus of Don Rodrigo Álvarez de las Asturias, among many other "jewels" of medieval Asturias.

In addition, the Archaeological Museum is a very lively and interactive museum where workshops, seminars, musical performances, etc. are often held.

In the Archaeological Museum, one of the oldest in Asturias, you will find the certainties of history, and you will suddenly feel like a scholar, a student doing research or a Benedictine monk...

The Museum of the Asturian People or the dream village

It was in the 60s of the 20th century when the Museum of the Asturian People was created, whose main purpose was and is to preserve and disseminate the memory of the Asturian people. For this reason, and as could not be otherwise, its content is made up of a wide and varied ethnographic and photographic collection, as well as documentation, musical instruments and testimonies of the oral tradition such as songs, legends, stories...

In reality it is much more than a museum, it is like crossing a horizon in time and settling in a dimension made up of granaries and paneras from the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, which in their time were brought from the parishes of Veriña and San Andres de los Tacones. Two noble houses were also brought here, that of the Valdés family, which came from Candás and dates from the 17th century, and that of the González de la Vega family, brought from Serín and dating from the 18th century.

It is a perfect portrait of the Asturian rural memory where you will also find a peasant house, a mallet for working iron, a cider press and a bowling alley for the "cuatreada".

If you are a music lover, you will have a great time at the Bagpipe Museum, located in the González de la Vega House.

In addition to all this atmosphere of an Asturian village designed as an entertainment and leisure area - with a tendayu (shed), amphitheatre and bowling alley -, there is also an exhibition area, located in what was the Asturias Pavilion at the 1992 Expo.

When you arrive at the Muséu del Pueblu d'Asturies you will feel that it is a space full of dynamism, where there are always conferences, seminars, concerts, workshops, parties, etc.

You will be able to experience in situ the open and sincere idiosyncrasy, full of hospitality and affection of the Asturians.

Mining Museum or a trip to the centre of the Earth

Would you like to know some of the secrets of the bowels of the Earth? Well, you're in the ideal place in Asturias, and in El Entrego, not to mention El Entrego. In this town in the Nalón Valley, located in the municipality of San Martín del Rey Aurelio, you will find the Museum of Mining and Industry, also known as MUMI.

The history of mining in Asturias will be before your astonished eyes. You can learn about old mining technologies, the world of explosives, the workings of the mining rescue brigades, the history of the Industrial Revolution, the wide variety of scientific instruments used in mining and, in short, all aspects of miners' lives, including the infirmary, the lamp works and the bathhouse.

And to round off such an intense journey, a visit to the so-called "Image Mine", which is no more and no less than a painstaking reproduction of a mine, just as it would be in reality, where you will see all the details of coal extraction and the physical and technical conditions of this activity.

The Museum of Mining and Industry of Asturias was built on the site of the dump of the historic Pozo San Vicente, in an area known as El Trabanquín. A small castle, with its buttresses resting on the square flanking the main door, presides over the whole of the striking building, and is visible from both the outside and the inside. There is also a lift or mining cage that provides access to the "Mina imagen" (Image Mine).

In short, your visit to the Mining Museum will be a real immersion into the lifestyle, culture and world of knowledge, discoveries and social changes that mining meant.

You will undoubtedly find this world fascinating and enlightening.

Jurassic Museum of Asturias: live an experience among dinosaurs

Can you imagine a place with stunning views of the Bay of Biscay and a garden full of dinosaurs? You can find all this outside the Jurassic Museum of Asturias (MUJA).

This museum, in the shape of a dinosaur's tridactyl footprint, is located in the Rasa de San Telmo, an emblematic place on the Asturian coast, between the towns of Colunga and Lastres. As spectacular on the outside as it is on the inside, inside the MUJA a wooden structure forms a framework of semicircular arches that simulate the ribs of the dinosaurs and gives you the almost magical sensation of a journey through time.

The Museum's permanent exhibition covers different periods: Pre-Mesozoic, Triassic, Jurassic, with a special room dedicated to the Asturian Jurassic, Cretaceous and Post-Mesozoic.

In addition, if anything characterises the MUJA, it is its hyperactivity, with workshops, exhibitions and all kinds of educational activities throughout the year, with the singularity that many of them are designed for children and families.

A leisurely stroll along the Rasa de San Telmo with a stop and visit to this innovative museum - which has an active scientific team and an impressive collection of thousands of fossils - is highly recommended. Outside the museum there are 39 life-size replicas of different types of dinosaurs.

It will be an authentic Jurassic experience, which you can complete with a visit to the dinosaur footprints that are just a few kilometres from the Museum, on a wonderful beach called La Griega.