streets and ancient granaries perched on stilts. At times what I was
seeing looked more like Ireland than Spain. There had been no
official sign of demarcation when I passed from León to Asturias.
It didn’t matter. I hadn’t needed one.
A Tale of Two Cities
I was heading for the Asturian capital of Oviedo, a compact city
of roughly 220,000 residents separated from the slightly larger
Gijón by rapidly encroaching suburbs. Each city has a proprietary
social scene; you can be a VIP in one and all but unknown in
the other. Oviedo has the better museums; Gijón has the beach.
Twice a year, the Sporting Gijón and Real Oviedo soccer teams
bring the rivalry to life before a full stadium.
Most visitors come upon Oviedo first. They seek out some
of the best pre-Romanesque architecture in the world, 14 pre-
served buildings, including the tall, narrow ninth-century
palace-church complex of Santa María del Naranco. I make a
pilgrimage there as soon as I arrive. I enter a vaulted room made
of stones the color of milk-clouded coffee. Only one other person
is here. The windows are cut thick into the walls of the building,
their shutters flung open to the breeze. I peer over a grove of
trees and see the city spread out below.
Within the hour I’m making my way through Oviedo and find
sculptures, it seems, on almost every corner; more than a hundred
adorn the capital. Before I reach my hotel, I pass “La Maternidad,”
a rounded woman with an equally rounded child by Colombian
sculptor Fernando Botero, then Miguel Ortiz Berrocal’s “El Diestro,”
a metallic rendering of a bullfighter’s torso. Later, in a residential
neighborhood, I’ll discover a conference center and office building
designed by Santiago Calatrava that looks like a massive winged
creature about to take flight. The next day, I’ll be transfixed by “El
Regreso de Williams B. Arrensberg,” a statue of a trench-coated
friend of artist Eduardo Úrculo, surrounded by suitcases and
sporting a bemused expression as he gazes at the city’s cathedral.
Oviedo’s artistic awakening has happened only over the last
generation, just as Nacho Manzano started drawing internationalEvenings find locals socializing around Gijón’s old port, a gathering place since the 1500s for fishermen, sailors, and merchants. One of Spain’s most
important port cities thanks to deep waters and a sheltered harbor, Gijón continues to update its facilities to attract cargo and cruise ships.
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