Surfing in Asturias: between stories of newcomers, Nobels and vertigo-inducing altitudes

Surfing in Asturias is always a privilege not only because of the quality of the waves and the many beaches where you can practice this ecological sport, but also because each place hides the most varied stories: novice surfers and their adventures, Nobel Prize winners who have fallen in love with the Asturian coast, and of course the dizzying heights - those of the Picos de Europa - that you can see from the crest of the wave...

That surfing is a growing movement and lifestyle in Asturias is a proven fact. All along the coast - there are three hundred and forty-five kilometres - there is a proliferation of surf schools, and it is very common to see at any time of the year, especially in spring and summer, dozens of novices and experienced surfers, who mingle with their colourful clothing creating a real aquatic choreography, in which the dabbling of children and adults who are beginning to familiarise themselves with the world of waves and foam, with the pirouettes and spectacular balance of the most experienced surfers. The sea is flooded with colour, and the saltpetre and iodine are the food for hundreds of "surfers" who travel the Asturian coast looking for their dream wave...

For some years now, marine figures have been incorporated into this landscape, a sort of "Christs" who walk on thewater... Well, it is not a biblical phenomenon, it comes from Hawaii, it is the fashionable activity: paddle-surfing, practised by surfing "teachers" to observe the evolution of their students, and also by wave lovers, and the truth is that Asturias is a real paradise for this practice.

There are eighteen fishing villages in Asturias, and their beaches are multiplied, and all of them have a surfing resonance, although obviously some more than others. If we were to trace a "surfing route" in Asturias, names such as Tapia de Casariego, Luarca, Salinas (Avilés), Gijón, Rodiles (Villaviciosa), La Espasa (Caravia), Ribadesella or Llanes cannot be missed. Moreover, as a cultural curiosity, it so happens that in the west and centre of Asturias, the same places and beaches that "enchant" thousands of "surfers" from all over the world, once enchanted Nobel Prize winnersas significant as Santiago Ramón y Cajal, who spent his summers in Salinas, or Severo Ochoa, born in Luarca, or the poet Seamus Heaney, also in love with Salinas?

So getting lost in these paths of water and surf foam will be a more than rewarding experience. Don't forget that at Easter you can't miss the Tapia de Casariego International Surfing Open.

In the summer you can't miss the International Longboard Festival in Salinas in the last week of July, which is also a Festival of Tourist Interest, or the Surf Music & Friends also in Salinas.

It is also true that surfing in Asturias is an adventure that makes the fans of this sport, especially when surfing in the eastern region, find before their eyes, with resounding evidence - especially on clear days - the vision of the rocky "masses" of the Picos de Europa, many of which are around or above two thousand metres high. A unique spectacle in Western Europe, where in few places you can "catch" waves almost at the foot of vertiginous mountains... Actually, my dream as a surfer, and I think that of many others, would be to surf from ridge to ridge, from a powerful wave in San Antolín de Bedón, so perfect and so strong that it would take me directly to the limestone crests of any summit of the central massif of the Picos de Europa...