Saturday, 4 June
I’m sleeping in these days (ostensibly to get my foot to heel), so it was late morning before I made it out of the house. I can now walk, though haltingly, and it was good to get some slow and careful practice. Oviedo was only just stirring in the aftermath of Friday night, so the archaeological museum to which we first headed wasn’t too busy. Like the Museo de Bellas Artes, this one has a very interesting collection, is housed in an impressive EU-funded building mixing old and new architecture, and is free.
Once we’d had our fill of Roman inscriptions, Romanesque fragments and untranslated texts about the post-Bronze Age hillfort culture that once dominated this area, we headed for a bar we knew served cider vermouth (a surprisingly new product on the Spanish drinks market). No, we weren’t starting early, at least not by Spanish standards – drinking vermouth before lunch is quite normal here, especially on weekends. And anyway, it was gone lunchtime by this point. One of our vermouths was dark, highly acidic and like a jazzed-up version of the sidra itself, while the other (also made with a cider base) was light and enigmatic, with subtle flavours of citrus and olive. Both were served with manzanilla olives both within and outside the glass!
Something we hadn’t expected to see was the parade that presently appeared around the corner. A snaking line of musicians in traditional Asturian dress, most playing bagpipes and a few with drums, was jovially piping its way up the street. A quick Google informed us that the cider festival celebrations were still ongoing, and that today was a day of ‘Folclore’ – but of course.
We also watched two weddings unfold whilst we sipped. One was leaving the side chapel of the cathedral, with suited men and women in heels and bright dresses spilling out across the square and cheering for the bride and groom. Many of these wedding guests ended up in our bar, and beer after beer and sidra after sidra was passed around. We didn’t see anyone pay!
Then, once back in the square, we realised that the main portal to the cathedral was, unusually, open. Inside, one could just make out a congregation standing expectantly, framed by bounteous decorations of flowers. Clearly, they were waiting for another bride. Outside the church, we were part of a gathering crowd of curious onlookers. Finally, a shiny classic car drove up and several photographers with massive cameras whizzed to life out of nowhere. Was the bride a celebrity? She emerged with her father, who was wearing a morning suit and some kind of medal, and was led into the church by a train of flower girls just as the organ struck up a grand tune. It was all very exciting.
Once we’d finished the vermouth, it was time for an errand we’d been meaning to complete since getting to Oviedo – purchasing some confectionary from the Benedictine convent. The idea of nuns making and selling sweets to fund their existence is incredibly medieval, but it’s had a clear influence on the cuisines of the Iberian peninsula – and it’s still practiced today. After ringing a little doorbell, we saw a diminutive black-clad nun appear and unlock it, and warmly welcome us in. I surprised myself with my ability to carry on a conversation with her in Spanish – no doubt her very slow and sweet manner helped! We purchased some ‘Oviedo Os’ – anise-flavoured cookies – but received much more for free, from little notebooks adorned with the monastery’s Camino stamp to some rather touching life advice about every day being a Camino (despite my physical setback). We could have talked to her for hours!
A slow meander through town in search of food finally led us to Sidreria Albero, a marisqueria (seafood restaurant). We decided to try things we’d never had before: pastel de cabracho and llámparas a la sidra. It was good that we did agree to have pan with it (at least, in my opinion), as the two dishes – spoiler alert – were not our favourite things ever. The first, red scorpionfish pâté, is a popular starter here, and is always served with small dry toasts and a bit of marie-rose sauce. It was like a loose, moist, fishy bread with a weirdly standardised feel (no wonder it looks the same everywhere, I guess) – and a lack of seasoning.
The second dish, the limpets (really) in cider, was even weirder. The piping hot terra-cotta bowl they came in seemed to be mostly filled with barnacle-like shells. However, on closer inspection, what looked like small dark slugs became visible. It turns out that limpets are in fact small aquatic snails, completely unrelated to barnacles, so…yum. Imagine a hard lump of the gross green part of a mussel with tiny snail horns on it, sitting on top of a very tough bit of gristle – that’s a llámpara without the shell for you. There was a bit of rather nice tomato-y, chorizo-y sauce adorning everything, but I couldn’t help feeling that this is what you would eat if there was really nothing else available. Croquetas for me next time, thanks.
Envying the table next to us with their massive platter of garlic-coated monkfish and fries, we left for a siesta. Later in the day, we were back in the old town for more folclore. At the bottom of the rather touristy ‘cider boulevard’ (though it must be said that 99.9% of the people here are Spanish-speaking, if not all of Spanish descent), a small tented stage was being set up. As we waited, more and more people gathered – the rain clouds may have been lying low, but everyone was out on the town.
Finally, the bagpipe band returned, playing a rather lovely piece in a circle in the middle of the street. Then, a group of women began singing what must have been traditional Asturian songs, aided by an accordionist and accompanying themselves first on tambourines and then on flat square drums called pandeiros. We watched them for a while, then headed to the monasterio to hear some Pentecostal chant. Unfortunately, it seems the entrance exam to become a nun doesn’t test for tone-deafness… We soon slipped out in search of more brash but more melodious al fresco folk music.
There’s something very special about watching somewhere you’re visiting come together for a traditional celebration. Oviedo’s old town had a jubilant air tonight, and it was only the knowledge that we really did have our own food and drink that needed consuming back at the Airbnb that stopped us from staying out longer. For dinner, Alfie whipped us up some impromptu open-faced sandwiches with gnarly cucumber and chorizo picadillo cooked in sherry, and we ate with bagpipe and tambourine melodies still whirling through our heads.
– Bea