Avilés

A council and a commercial, cosmopolitan, dynamic, metropolitan city with medieval origins and a great seafaring tradition, we are talking about Avilés.

The town and capital of the municipality has a historic quarter dotted with palaces, gardens, fountains, churches, arcaded houses, etc. that give it a unique atmosphere. The size and proportions of its estuary, and its passage through the very heart of the city, make Avilés the only city in Asturias with a powerful river flow at the foot of its historic quarter, one of the best preserved in the whole of northern Spain.

Land of discoverers such as Pedro Menéndez de Avilés - conqueror of Florida in the American continent -, it is a city and a council open to innovation and with an artistic vocation. Moreover, contemporary Avilés also experienced a great industrial revolution thanks to the iron and steel industry, which has marked a post-industrial 'physiognomy' that inspired the architectural genius Oscar Niemeyer to create the last of his great international works, a cultural centre that bears his name and is a symbol of the urban and sociological renovation that the area is undergoing.

Here are the top 10 things to see and do in Avilés.

• Population: 83,107 inhabitants
• Surface area: 26.81 26.81 ^km2
• Weekly market: Monday