Things to Do in Gijón

Discover the beautiful coastal city of Gijón on this walking tour where you will learn about the origins of the city, its history, how the city has changed into the modern city we see today and discover some of its former inhabitants. 

We'll start at "stairs No. 3" to the San Lorenzo beach and delve into the historic neighbourhood of Cimavilla. We will talk about its Roman heritage, its cathedral of the sea (the Church of San Pedro), get to know more about one of its most illustrious former inhabitants (Jovellanos), visit the place where the neighbours would go to wash their clothes and go up the Cerro de Santa Catalina where we will talk about one of the symbols of the city. We will then go to the old docks, pass by the Marquis' square and finish at the city hall. 

The whole walking tour usually takes 2 to 2 and a half hours.

I recommend bringing comfortable walking shoes.

Gijón también conocida como la capital de la Costa Verde, es la capital marítima de Asturias y una de las ciudades costeras más interesantes de España. Descubre su origen celta, sus edificios más representativos y su agradable paseo marítimo con esta visita guiada por Gijón.

Nos encontraremos a la hora elegida en uno de los lugares más icónicos de Gijón: el Puerto Deportivo. Con los veleros del puerto como telón de fondo, repasaremos la historia esta ciudad de origen celta que pasó por manos romanas y cristianas, sin renunciar a su libertad.

Paseando por el muelle llegaremos al Palacio de Revillagigedo, la primera parada de este free tour por Gijón. Este majestuoso palacio del siglo XVIII tiene una peculiaridad; aunque sus dos torres parecen gemelas, una de ellas es 300 años más antigua. Frente a él encontraremos la estatua de un caballero portando una cruz. ¿Sabríais decir quién es? Se trata de Don Pelayo, el primer rey astur y una figura muy querida por los asturianos.

El tour por Gijón continuará en el barrio de pescadores de Cimadevilla, un lugar que condensa la más pura esencia gijonesa. Sentiremos cómo los aires marineros del barrio se entremezclan con los vestigios romanos de sus calles, las más antiguas de la ciudad.

Desde Cimadevilla continuaremos nuestro paseo a pie en dirección a la costa. Contemplaremos cómo la Playa de San Lorenzo se funde con el mar mientras paseamos por el famoso Muro de Gijón, una amplia avenida que discurre paralela al Cantábrico y comunica los dos extremos del casco urbano de la ciudad. Además, aprovecharemos para desvelaros alguna curiosidad sobre esta mítica calle.

La última parada del free tour será la elegante Plaza Mayor, el escenario perfecto para despedirnos tras dos horas descubriendo los principales atractivos de Gijón.

Do you want to know the “Gijón of the soul” that Vicente Díaz sings about?

This 5,000-year-old seaside town invites you to relax on its promenade, lose yourself in its narrow streets and get drunk on its cider.

Will you join us?

We will start the tour by meeting at a legendary meeting point for the people of Gijón, La Escalerona. The smell of salt and the sea breeze will welcome us on a tour of this port city full of anecdotes, stories, culture and art .

On our first steps we will have the opportunity to greet Caesar, who will tell us what the inhabitants of Gijón were like during their Roman past. The thermal baths from that period will be a must-see during our walk along the beach.

Next, crowning the Paseo Marítimo , we will find the Church of San Pedro , a beautiful building that is a symbol of our city. Did you know that both the thermal baths and the church are located in the so-called Campo Valdés?

Our steps will take us to the Plaza Mayor until we enter the Cimadevilla neighbourhood , the old town of Gijón. Here we will find such characteristic buildings as the Palacio de los Valdés, the Palacio de Revillagigedo and the Torre del Reloj .

In the Plaza del Marqués we will see the Monument to Don Pelayo , founder of the Kingdom of Asturias and considered the initiator of the Reconquest.

But there are still other characters to meet! A few metres away we will come across the house of Jovellanos himself , who will whisper his illustrated ideas to us before we continue our tour.

A bit of gastronomy and popular culture could not be missing from the tour. We will visit the renowned Plaza del Lavaderu and Campo de las Monjas -Les Monxes- to end up wandering through the fishing village.

Let yourself be overwhelmed by the immensity of the Cantabrian Sea with Chillida ! And of course, we will tell you about the most modern, cultural and indie Gijón, revealing aspects of Gijón's music, cinema and literature.

Are you coming with us?

Gijón is waiting for you!

👻 DISCOVER THE DARKEST SIDE OF GIJÓN!!🕵️‍♂️


Gijón is history, leisure, tradition, gastronomy, but behind its streets and buildings it hides legends of haunted houses, ghosts , carefully silenced secrets or crimes that made many people pale.

Come for a walk through the best-known streets of Gijón, but of which we sometimes ignore that, where today we drink a culín, enjoy the beach or savor a fabada, others lived much more tragic experiences .

Don't think twice and dare to discover the mysteries and legends of Gijón!!

⚠️ This visit touches on difficult topics that may make it not recommended for children.

Gijón is history, leisure, tradition, gastronomy ... During the approximately two hours we will be together, we will know that and much more. Taking the Plaza Mayor as a starting point and after visiting the marina, we will stroll through the Cimavilla neighborhood; Origin of the city, birthplace of Jovellanos and whose streets keep stories of sailors, cigars, fishmongers ... In short, people who have been printing its current character. From its watchtower, the Cerro de Santa Catalina, we can recreate with one of the best pictures of the town and, later, descend again to the church of San Pedro and the surroundings of the Roman baths. In addition, we will give you options so you can continue enjoying Gijón and Asturias on your own. Don't think about it anymore, WE WAIT FOR YOU!

You cannot miss one of the most impressive monumental complexes in the city of Gijón. The Labor University, a city in itself that will not leave you indifferent.

It was built between 1946 and 1956, conceived as an orphanage for children of miners who died in accidents, and once construction had begun, it changed its orientation towards a vocational training school for about 1,000 students, thus becoming a Labor University.

It is the largest civil building in Spain. Its dimensions are imposing. The director of such a magnificent work was Luis Moya, based on the classical architecture of Greece and Rome.

The visit will begin outside the main door, our meeting point.

We will access the Corinthian courtyard, which stands out for its Corinthian style colonnade. We would move on to the square that is the heart of the complex, inspired by St. Mark's Square in Venice. The main buildings are located around it: Theatre, Church and Tower.

Facade of the theater in classical-Hellenistic style, simulating the temples of ancient Greece, we will see the sculptures of great Spanish writers such as Miguel de Cervantes, Quevedo, Calderón de la Barca, Tirso de Molina or Lope de Vega.

We would continue to the Church with the largest elliptical plan in Europe. The exterior is richly ornamented with Saints and most important educators of the Catholic Church.

We will see the 130 meter high tower inspired by the Giralda in Seville, the Tower of Hercules and the Lighthouse of Alexandria, it is the tallest stone tower in Spain.

We will visit the gardens from which we will see the structure of the auditorium that resembles the shape of the bow of a ship

We would return to the entrance to round off the visit.


YOU CAN NOT LOSE THIS.............

Delve into the real Asturias on this tour to the Natural Park of Ponga and spot all kinds of wildlife as you're surrounded by the natural beauty of the region!

Gijón is one of the most beautiful maritime cities in Spain, but when night falls you can hear whispers of crimes that have happened in its streets, secrets and magical beings. Discover with us the most surprising stories of the city on this free tour of the myths and legends of Gijón.

Intrepid traveler, we invite you to the door of the Church of San Pedro together with other seekers of stories like you, to begin our nocturnal route. We will soon leave the protection of this Christian temple to begin the task that has been entrusted to us: to reveal some of the most gruesome myths that have occurred in the town of Jovellanos, to find beings that inhabit the nightlife of Gijón and other monsters that are not so mythological, but that will also make our hair stand on end.

“ They say that the cuélebre has the scales of a fish, that it lives inside the river where no one sees it. The last time they saw it, it was in the town, dressed as a bagpiper...”

This is what Víctor Manuel sang in his song. Is it really as he tells us? We will get to know this mythological Asturian and the story that links him to the beach of San Lorenzo.

We will walk through the streets of Gijón like disturbing souls while we bring to light the Asturian crime chronicle . We will talk about some of the most macabre crimes of the place, such as the infanticide of Cruces, the case of the girl in mourning and others.

We will not take off our mourning clothes, as there are still many crimes to be committed tonight. Our steps will take us to the epicentre of the macabre … Traveler, you will be thinking: what place is this? You will be surprised to learn how the Town Hall Square was a place of executions in the not-so-distant past or how the Clock Tower was the old city prison…

We will travel to the end of the 15th century, a time of superstitions , of legends that filtered into everyday life and where the strigias took center stage. Who are these characters? Myth or reality ? Come carefully, traveler, and we will tell you more...

In a seaside town like this, there can't be a lack of disturbing stories related to the sea and the beings that inhabit its depths. Next to the breakwater, we will witness one of the most famous trials among sailors.

After reading this , are you ready to join us in exploring the unknown side of Gijón?



⚠️👦🏻This tour is not recommended for children due to explicit content of violence, sex and criminal events.

In this dramatized tour, we will follow in Jovellanos ' footsteps and reveal the great work the Asturian did to transform Gijón .

Itinerary

Are you ready to meet one of the greatest exponents of the Enlightenment in Spain ? At the scheduled time, we'll meet at the entrance to Jovellanos's Birthplace and begin a tour of Gijón that will leave you spellbound.

Gijón owes much to this illustrious figure, as he managed to transform the city in various areas, including culture, architecture, and the economy. Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos , born in 1744 in the Cimavilla area , was one of the great men of his time, and this is reflected in many of Gijón's corners.

Throughout this dramatized tour, we will delve into the biography of this Asturian writer, philosopher, jurist, and politician, visiting some of the landmarks that marked a before and after in his life, such as San Lorenzo beach and the famous wall he designed to contain the advance of the Cantabrian Sea.

Afterwards, we'll walk to Parchís Square , where the Jovellanos Institute is located. This is a perfect spot to explore Jovellanos' role in education. What were his contributions? You'll be amazed!

In addition, we will walk along Paseo de Begoña until we reach Plaza del Seis de Agosto , where we will remember the welcome Gijón gave him after being exiled from Asturias.

Gijón is a city of anonymous and well-known women fighters . During the tour we will see different points of the city through their eyes, we will tell about their experiences, their struggles to get job improvements or the lives of illustrious women who developed sporting feats, writers and suffragettes even participated in the taking of the city in the Middle Ages.
We will see through his eyes the fishing district, the marina and the modernist area.
We will take a journey through the history of the city while we get to know the most emblematic places where feats and daily events took place.
It will undoubtedly be a different visit and with another look.
We will wait for you!

Spain is different... but Gijón more so.
In Gijón everything is big (Molinón, mareona, acerona...) or small (rinconin,,,) we baptize everything even if... it already has a name (las chaponas, la lloca, el parchis...), we dress up monuments like Pelayo, we laugh at ourselves or we are cool asses or flat asses, we even had a flat Chinese guy who drank panther's milk and even... a hangman!!!!!!
You can discover all this and more on this visit to the fishing village of Gijón.

Gijón is stories , stories of the people who made it grow, from Jovellanos (who became Minister of Justice under Charles II) to the cigarette makers in the Plaza del Lavaderu,

We will stroll through its seaside district, the cradle of the city with streets that still retain the popular air, or we will leisurely contemplate the corners of the district with its palaces or popular squares where we can stop to have a cider, a popular and native drink.

During the 2 and a half hours that we will be together you will discover that Gijón or Xixon is full of charming corners.

Taking Campo Valdés as a starting point, next to the Church of San Pedro (on the beach), we propose a quiet walk through the historic centre of the Cimadevilla neighbourhood, the origin of the city and the birthplace of Jovellanos, visiting the Plaza del Lavaderu , or Plaza de la Soledad , a walk along the port where we will talk about the stories of the fishmongers who went up the Cuesta´l Cholo to sell their wares at the cry of "there are sardines" ... and if you still feel like it, we will give you advice on how to take a short walk through the streets of the most commercial centre and contemplate 19th and early 20th century Gijón with its modernist and Art Deco architecture.

In short, everything that has given it its current character.

Don't hesitate. BOOK YOUR TOUR HERE

With me you will be able to discover the most beautiful corners of the city and the most amazing tourist sites of the Gijón coast. I will recommend the best cider houses in Gijón where you can try the typical food of the region, drink Asturian cider, and see how this famous drink is poured. One of the strong points of Asturias is its gastronomy. Here, in the Natural Paradise, people eat a lot, until they burst. The most delicious typical dishes of Asturian gastronomy are: cachopo, Asturian fabada, Asturian pote, chorizo a la sidra, escalopines al cabrales, pitu de caleya, tortos de maíz, pastel de cabracho, or pixin, and all accompanied with cider. Asturias is the only province in the world where cider is poured!

What can you visit on this free tour?

With me you will explore this beautiful city where I will show you its most important tourist attractions, such as:

Marina, Old Town, Praise of the Horizon, San Lorenzo Beach, Museum of the People of Asturias, Promenade, Mirador de la Providencia, Botanical Garden, Monte Deva, Gijón Aquarium, Evaristo Valle Museum, Revillagigedo Palace, Cimadevila Clock Tower, Laboral City of Culture, Faro Torres, Railway Museum, Campo Valdés Roman Baths, Campa Torres, Piles River Park, or Isabel Católica Park.