Lower Nalon

A pacifist and strategist king fell in love with it, with a region he found ideal for establishing a court that grew and prospered. The king's name was Silo and his wife Adosinda, and their love for the land and the court gave Pravia and its surroundings the regal and stately air that it has retained to this day. In passing, they thought of and conceived a temple such as Santianes, to further enhance and consolidate the Pre-Romanesque style, which centuries later has a museum in Pravia's lands. These are the same lands that stand out for their vegetable garden, for their hospitality and family sense of festivity translated into an event such as the Xiringüelu, and for their fluvial sense of life, a life marked by emblematic rivers such as the Narcea and the Nalón, which make this area a paradise for fishing, especially for salmon.

When Silo fell in love with this part of the ancient Asturias, he was anticipating other love affairs that took place centuries later, such as those of the Indianos, so 'hooked' from distant America to the land where they were born and pushed them to the transoceanic adventure. Out of love they built farms full of romanticism and cultural mixing, and many of them are splendidly preserved in the village of Somao, in Peñaullán or in San Esteban. In time, that fertile plain, irrigated by the 'sacred' waters of the Nalón - the longest river in Asturias with its one hundred and forty-five kilometres - would become a great ecological and tourist larder, and the banks of this river would be home to hundreds of fishermen, with their skeletal and medieval docks that are still preserved today and delight tourists and artists, such as the one that still exists in the village of El Castillu.

In time, the Nalón, when it became an estuary, would yield one of the most precious treasures - those that arise when river and sea waters mix - we are talking about the elvers, which became and still are today the gastronomic and tourist symbol of a town, that of L'Arena, which has a seafaring vocation written on its genetic map, and which does not forget its most ancestral traditions, such as that of the 'angulero' - a kind of Santa Claus in the Bajo Nalón style - who brings presents to the children every year. L'Arena boasts of its seafaring people, its rula, its port, and even its beach of Los Quebrantos.

Because Silo liked the quiet life and the Lower Nalón was ideal for strolling along enjoying the coast, with 'film' beaches such as Aguilar or walks along the area that nowadays is the coastal path, also known as the route of the viewpoints, where there are impressive panoramic views of the sea, a chapel overlooking the horizon - that of the Holy Spirit -, and very close to it begins the descent towards San Esteban by a staircase of hundreds of comfortable steps, which take us to the 'rive gauche' of the Nalón. This left bank personalises in San Esteban the compendium of the essences of the Lower Nalón: industrial, Indian, rural, historical and seafaring.

The 'quintessence' of the Lower Nalón was not only the dream of a king, a queen and their court, it was the inspiration for artists such as the poet Rubén Darío or the painter Joaquín Sorolla... It is the dream of hundreds of visitors and sportsmen, who enjoy the calm waters and the fertile banks of the Lower Nalón.

The territory defined by the mouth of the river Nalón includes the councils of Muros de Nalón, Pravia and Soto del Barco.