Playa de San Lorenzo

I had been in Gijón for just over 2 days and hadn't yet explored the city because of the two tours I had just done. I had one day to redress that imbalance before leaving the northern coast for Madrid.

My hotel was only a block from Playa de San Lorenzo so I started there. It's the longest urban beach in Gijón at 1.5 km.

Cider is an important part of the Asturian identity.

Gijón is the largest city by population in Asturias but the capital is at Oviedo, about 25 km in a straight line inland. Gijón was an important steel and shipbuilding city and port but is now pivoting to commerce, education, R&D, and tourism.

I passed this modernist tower La Escalerona set on a lookout point. It has a thermometer and a barometer. As you can see the day was cool and a bit drizzly.

Varsovia is a pub. I liked the facade.

A marker on the ground indicates the original walls of Gijón. In the distance is Iglesia de San Pedro.

A close up using telephoto. Iglesia de San Pedro (page in Spanish). It was built between 1945 and 1955, replacing an older church destroyed in the civil war.

I'm actually up next to it now.

Edificio Administrativo Antigua Pescadería Municipal (page in Spanish), as the name indicates, used to be a fish market, but is now a municipal administration office.

I have walked past the church now, and I'm looking back at the buildings behind the beachfront.

You can see from this panorama that the previous photo was zoomed.

This one shows a bit more of the lookout I took the photos from.

To the north is Real Club Astur de Regatas Gijón. As you would expect, ocean sports are prominent on the northern coast.

The area north of the municipal office is Cimavilla, the oldest part of the city, which occupies a bulb of land extending into the Atlantic.

At this point I entered the area of the old fortifications of Gijón, which is now recreational land, so I'll start a new post for that.