Green Asturias is this country's Wales - but even better

[José Balido]

Cliffs plummet dramatically to beaches and crashing surf. Lush green hills rise and fall, then keep rising until they swell into the craggy, majestic Picos de Europa range. In the compact principality of Asturias, roughly midway along Spain's north coast, nature is front and center. There are several good-size cities here, for sure. But the flavor of this land is bucolic and small-town, with picture-postcard views almost everywhere you look. It is not what most anyone would think of as "typical" Spain, but it's a place I absolutely never tire of visiting. That flavor is one reason I think of it as Spain's answer to Wales. Another is the fact that for historic reasons it's "officially" still a principality, and just as Charles is Prince of Wales, the heir apparent to Spain's monarch is the Prince (or currently, Princess) of Asturias. And there are even more reasons, as will become apparent below. There are two distinct sides to Asturias: its rolling hinterland and its craggy coast, dotted with impossibly picturesque villages and towns. Top of many people's beauty list would be Cudillero (or Cuideiru, in the local variant of Spanish, called Bable or Asturianu), climbing a coastal hillside with a jumble of colorful houses, with delightful... keep reading