Oviedo

Oviedo is in the heart of Asturias, right in the centre, and its capital is the capital of the Principality. It is the second most populated municipality in Asturias, and is one of the key points in the metropolitan area of the region.

When Máximo and Fromestano founded a monastery under the patronage of San Vicente, little could they have imagined that that place would be the origin of the capital of the first Christian kingdom of the Iberian Peninsula, and much less that more than a thousand years later a famous film director and Princess of Asturias Award winner such as Woody Allen would describe it "as a fairytale city where everything is old, clean and pleasant...".

The birth of the city of Oviedo/Uviéu - it holds the titles of 'most noble, most loyal, most meritorious, undefeated, heroic and good' - has all the legendary and epic ingredients of great deeds. Since ancient times it has preserved its monastic and royal stamp, and continues to be a prime reference point on the Primitive Pilgrim's Way to Santiago, whose founder was also an Asturian king, D. Alfonso II.

The Asturian capital is hospitable and dynamic, where you can experience something different every day, and has an intense cultural and commercial life, and neighbourhoods, each with its own distinctive and attractive character.

It is a city of human dimensions, especially designed for strolling, as it has many pedestrian streets, where every corner holds an unexpected sensation: the Fontán market, the cider boulevard, the Pre-Romanesque fountain of La Foncalada, the Cathedral with a Gothic and a Romanesque tower, the historic quarter which has been a source of inspiration for writers such as Clarín and Pérez de Ayala, contemporary civil architecture and an intense agenda which includes, among others, the opera season and the Princess of Asturias Awards Ceremony.

This is the city of Oviedo/Uviéu, monastic, royal and Jacobean, a beacon of Christianity in the late Middle Ages, which still treasures among its relics a universal reference: the Holy Shroud.

Mount Naranco - a place of pilgrimage and sporting events -, or the area of Faro, Limanes, Santa Ana de Abuli, etc. make up a pleasant rural environment for walking, visiting monuments or enjoying the gastronomy and cider, in a festive, hospitable council that loves Asturian traditions.

Population: 225,973 inhabitants.
Surface area: 186.65 ^km2