Rainy days, well spent: five ways to make the most of the weather
In Asturias, the rain keeps the hills green and the apples sweet. Five quiet, characterful places to spend a wet afternoon, all within easy reach.
In Asturias, the rain is part of the deal. It is what keeps the hillsides so green, the apples so sweet, the rivers running clear through the Sueve and on down to the sea. We will never pretend otherwise — and we would not want to. A grey morning is simply an invitation to slow down further: a long breakfast, a second coffee, and then a short drive to somewhere quietly remarkable. Here are five of our favourite places to spend a wet afternoon, all within easy reach of the house.
1. Where time slows down — La Casa del Tiempo, Infiesto
Tucked into the old town of Infiesto, just twenty minutes from us, La Casa del Tiempo is one of those small, eccentric museums that you will be glad you stumbled into. More than 100 clocks and 500 timekeeping pieces are gathered across the rooms — station clocks, pocket watches, ornate parlour pieces, oddities from the Black Forest and from Morez. Some of them have been measuring time for several hundred years.
What really makes the visit, though, is Pedro Suárez — the museum's founder and soul. Every tour is guided, and Pedro's quiet enthusiasm for his collection is contagious. You will leave knowing more about the history of horology than you ever expected to, and probably wishing you had stayed longer.
Good to know: Open Saturdays, Sundays and bank holidays from 5pm to 8pm. Outside those hours, ring ahead to arrange a visit: 984 113 012. Entry is around €3.
2. A walk through deep time — Museo del Jurásico de Asturias (MUJA)
Five minutes from our door, on the rasa de San Telmo between Colunga and Lastres, an enormous concrete dinosaur footprint sits on the cliffs above the sea. This is the MUJA, and it is far more interesting than that description suggests.
Inside, the museum walks you through the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous — full-size skeletons, fossil casts, and one of the finest collections of dinosaur-footprint icnitas anywhere in the world (Asturias has rather a lot of them; nine sites along this coast alone). A new immersive room opened earlier this year, and the gardens outside are dotted with twenty life-size replicas you can wander among with the Cantabrian coast as a backdrop. It is not just for families — adults regularly walk out a little dazed by the scale of geological time.
Good to know: Free entry on Wednesdays. Buy tickets online to skip the queues. Guided visits run at weekends, usually at 5pm.
3. The soul of sidra — Cortina and the Museo de la Sidra
You cannot really understand Asturias without understanding cider. On a wet afternoon, there are two ways to do that properly.
Llagar de Sidra Cortina, in Amandi (Villaviciosa) — barely fifteen minutes from us — is a third-generation family llagar that has been pressing apples since 1952. Their guided tour walks you through the whole process, from orchard to bottle, and finishes with a culín poured straight from the barrel, a taste of their ice cider, and a pairing of local cheeses. Booking ahead is essential, as the tour times are limited.
For something more contemplative, the Museo de la Sidra de Asturias in Nava (about half an hour away) tells the bigger story: the apple, the llagar, the chigre, the folklore, the social ritual of escanciar. At the end of the visit you can try the pour yourself — harder than it looks, and worth a laugh. Entry is free on Tuesdays.
4. A second life in Formula 1 — Museo y Circuito Fernando Alonso
About forty-five minutes from us, just outside Oviedo in Llanera, sits the personal collection of Asturias's most famous son. The Museo Fernando Alonso holds more than 400 pieces from his career — the first kart he raced as a child, the Minardi, the Renaults he won his world championships in, the Ferrari, the McLaren, the Aston Martin, plus the trophies, the suits, the helmets, the wear and tear of a life lived at 300 km/h.
The lovely touch: the audio guide is narrated by Alonso himself, in Spanish or English. Whether or not you are a motorsport person, there is something quite moving about hearing him talk you through his own story, in his own voice, standing in front of the actual car. Plan on an hour for the museum; there is also an FIA-approved karting circuit on site if you want to watch a race.
Good to know: Open daily, 10am to 7pm. Last entry at 6pm. Tickets can be bought online
5. Down into the dark — MUMI, Museo de la Minería
Coal made modern Asturias. The railways, the steelworks, the ports, the towns clinging to the green valleys of the Nalón and the Caudal — none of it would exist without the men who went underground for two centuries. The MUMI, in El Entrego, is their monument.
It is the most visited museum in Asturias, and that is no accident. Above ground, two floors trace the technical history of European mining — the Newcomen and Watt steam engines, the lamp room, the rescue brigade, the infirmary, the bathhouse. The unforgettable part comes when you step into the cage lift and descend into the mina-imagen — a full-scale reconstruction of a working coal seam, with a kilometre of guided tunnel and a stretch on the miners' train. Real miners lead the visits, and they tell it as it was.
Allow two and a half hours for the full experience. Bring a jacket — it is genuinely cool underground.
Good to know: Closed Mondays. Around 50 minutes from us. The mine portion is guided, so arrive at least an hour before closing.
