STREETS OF AVILÉS
One of the best things about Avilés is that everything is very close. In addition, with the pedestrianization that took place at the end of the last century, it is a delight to walk through the city center. You can start in the streets that made up the walled city, then move on to those that were made with the baroque expansion to finish in the last ones created in the splendor of the Indians. What is certain is that each of the streets will take you to a place worth visiting.
LA FERRERÍA STREET
The oldest treasures of medieval Aviles are in this street as the church of the Franciscan Fathers of the twelfth century, the Palace of Valdecarzana and the chapel of the Wings of the XIV.
La Ferrería was the main street of walled Aviles. It crossed the town from side to side, from the sea gate, at the confluence with La Muralla street, where the port was located until the nineteenth century, to the Alcazar gate at the beginning of the Plaza de España on the way out to Oviedo.
It owes its name to the trade of the people of the street, blacksmiths, although there are also theories that speak of the existence of a forge at the beginning of the street.
Like so many others in Aviles is a street with arcades to allow the passage of people sheltered from the rain. Although unlike the arcades of Rivero or especially Galiana, these are much narrower.
In this street was born the most illustrious citizen of Avilés, Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, Adelantado de la Florida.
LA FRUTA STREET
It is currently one of the most important and busy streets of the city, a street of stores and restaurants.
Together with La Ferrería street, it is the other main artery of the walled medieval Avilés that crosses it longitudinally.
Originally this street was two: one to the south, known as Cimadevilla from the wall with entrance at the clock gate to the junction with Sol street, where the now disappeared Plaza de la Villa was. From this square began the street known as Calle Oscura, which ended at the wall overlooking the port.
These two medieval streets followed the same pattern as La Ferrería street, being build with arcades on both sides. The fires of 1478 and 1621 destroyed many houses of the street and in its reconstruction this one gains in amplitude and receives the name that it has at the moment, when the fruit and vegetable sellers were located in it. Finally, at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, the last important remodeling took place in which the current buildings of the street were erected.
EL SOL STREET
Calle del Sol is part, along with the streets of La Fruta and La Ferrería, of the small urban nucleus of medieval Aviles, serving as a junction of the two main streets.
Less than 100 meters long, it was initially called Azogue Street, a name of Arabic origin that refers to the market, as the streets of this historic center were the venue for the medieval market granted to Aviles after the fire of 1489. This street, it seems, was the one dedicated to fish stalls.
The street begins at the side of the palacio de Valdecarzana and until the 17th century, it ended at the Plaza de la Villa, now disappeared in the fire of 1621.
SAN BERNARDO STREET
San Bernardo Street would be another of the roads that crossed the wall from side to side.
It ran parallel to the wall connecting the royal road from Grado, which was accessed through the door of the Chamber and ended at the gate of the bridge, which today would be the passage to Gozón.
Although it has had different names throughout its history, the name it has today is due to the arrival in 1553 of the Bernardine nuns in a new monastery built on that street.
This convent was demolished at the end of the 19th century and its remains were used to fill in the Meanas marsh area.
RIVERO STREET
Other elements to highlight in the street, in addition to the aforementioned palace, is the fountain of the rivero pipes and the church of San Pedro. You can also access through this street to the great green lung of the city, the Ferrera Park.
Rivero Street is another important entrance and exit road to and from the city. In medieval times it was the way in and, above all, the way out of the products that arrived by ship to the dock in the direction of Oviedo. It was (and still is) also a passageway on the road to Santiago de Compostela.
When in the 17th century it was decided to expand the city, this street, which was previously a transit road, became especially important.
It begins in the Plaza de España with the construction of the palace of Llano Ponte (also known as García Pumarino), and develops along the royal road to Oviedo.
At the end of the 18th century, the family of the then bishop of Oviedo, Juan Llano Ponte, lived in the palace (at that time already owned by the Llano Ponte family). Apparently the bishop came in a rather large carriage that had difficulty passing through the street, so he paid for the improvement of the street, incorporating sewerage to it and, incidentally, eliminating some house that prevented the good man to transit with the carriage he brought.
GALIANA STREET
As peculiarities of the street indicate that it has about 250 meters of arcades, and in it you can see two types of floors, one paved for animals and one smooth for people. Also preserved, between numbers 40 and 44, are some holes in the ceiling that served as a peephole to see who was around or knocking on the door. Another curious detail is the niche of the Virgen del Carmen placed by a neighbor (Pepín the gardener) in 1812.
A street with a great social atmosphere where you can enjoy the terraces during the day or have a drink at night.
In the seventeenth century Aviles began to grow outside the wall and there was only the option of expanding to the south, the rest of the land being surrounded by marshes or the estuary.
This gives rise to growth following two roads, the road to Oviedo along Rivero Street and the road to Grado along Galiana Street.
For this reason, in 1663 the first houses began to be built on the galiana (hence the name) or gully that descended from the Carbayedo to the urban center. The land was originally occupied by the orchards of the Franciscan friars who had settled in the area.
If you look at Galiana street you will see two types of buildings depending on which way you look.On one side the houses of the humble people, the artisans, which are the houses under the arcades, with vegetable garden in the back and who used the arcades to work or sell. On the other side of the street were built in the early twentieth century the Indian buildings on the former grounds of the convent of San Francisco, which reached almost to the middle of the street.
DE LOS CUERNOS STREET
Today it is one of the most peculiar streets of Avilés, for being a little hidden and for its narrowness, and it has different restaurants and bars.
Officially it is the street of Alfonso VII (king who endorsed the Charter of Aviles in 1155) but everyone knows it as Calleja de los Cuernos.
There are several versions about the origin of this name, from the fact that it was the way down for cows and oxen from the Carbayedo area to water at the source of the Chamber, another indicates that in the street there was a slaughterhouse and a third is based on the horns that had a rich man of Aviles for a young girl who lived on this street.
Its existence is documented in a document of the early seventeenth century which indicates the transfer of the pole where the prisoners who were going to be executed were tied from the Town Hall Square to this street.
LA MURALLA STREET
It is called La Muralla Street because it ran parallel to the medieval wall that was demolished between 1812 and 1821.
This street appears with the expansion of the city that was made in the nineteenth century. This enlargement was made in a westerly direction, joining the walled town with the seafaring neighborhood of Sabugo. For this purpose, the dock was moved, the marshes were drained, using the remains of the wall itself, and the Tuluergo river was channeled.
This allowed the urbanization of a large area where the current plaza de Abastos, the Plaza de Pedro Menéndez and the Parque del muelle were born.
LA CÁMARA STREET
Today it is the main street of the city. It was born in the bourgeois Avilés of the XIX century to join the town with the neighborhood of Sabugo.
It owes its name to a fountain located between Cabruñana and San Bernardo streets called La Cámara (The Chamber) because it had two spouts located in a stone chamber.
It is the most commercial street of Aviles and highlights in its route the palacio de Maqua, down to the left and ends in what was once the Plaza de la Merced. Today disappeared square where the convent of La Merced was located, demolished in 1895 and where later would rise the new church of Sabugo in 1903.
