Vaqueiro Museum of Asturias

The Vaqueiros de Alzada are an Asturian cultural group whose main activity was transhumance livestock farming. Their pastoral life, transhumance and their isolated habitat were the basis for confrontations with the farming villagers (xaldos), and friction with the authorities, both civil and ecclesiastical. The Vaqueiro Museum of Asturias is made up of two sections:

• The first is made up of a group of houses, a barn and haystack, dating from the end of the 18th century, recently restored, faithfully respecting the constructive guidelines of the late 19th century cowboy house. It is located in the Barzaniecha neighbourhood, in the west of the village of Naraval, forming a beautiful ensemble with the rest of the buildings in the area.
• The second, in the village of Folgueras del Río, in the parish of Navaral, we can see another old house, repaired without altering its original state, as a cowherd's house from the end of the 18th century, and used as a museum. This house is in the highest part of the village and is divided into two parts, one as a court and the other as a dwelling, in which the way the old vaqueiros used to live stands out, in a rather small room, which they filled with a bunk bed, the chariega, the escano and other belongings.

The Museum consists of three distinct parts: The main building has the dwelling at the top. At the entrance is the chariega, with its char and wood-burning stove. We go into the sleeping room, where there is no lack of bierzos, beds and other utensils, and we go out into the corridor, which has the folga room at one end. In the lower part of the building is the court, where we can see from a small fouz to the old Roman chaveguin. A staircase leads to the central building, the panera, typical of western Asturias, used to store grain, meat and other products of the land.

Inside the museum complex there is another building, once used as a hayloft and court, and which in this project houses, in the lower part, a warehouse for the restoration of pieces and the toilets, and in the upper part the audiovisual room, in which it will be possible to see:

• Illustrative panels and drawings on themes related to the museum.
• Photographic exhibition, slide projection and video projection.
• We can listen to traditional Asturian music and folklore from Asturias.
• Round tables, talks, colloquiums and other educational activities.