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alright guys back to the video good evening to all my adventurers adventure elliot here i'm in the
city of gijon which is in northwest spain the biggest city in asturias
and today i thought i would give you guys a little tour of this beautiful quaint city like i said
on the northern coast of spain in asturias bordering the cantabrian sea in the bay of biscay
i'm doing what's called the camino de santiago the northern route ruta del norte
and one of the stops of course about 500 kilometers in is this city of gijon and so
let's do a walk around of the city let's check it out you know it's a city
a medium-sized city of about 260 000 people or a little more the 15th biggest city in spain
and i'm here in the center part of the city we're gonna do a little walk around tour
and uh show you what it has to offer it's one of those places that not a lot of people come to
when they visit spain they go to the central park they go to barcelona they go to the southern
coast catalonia for example but not everybody ventures to the north where i am and so i think
in that sense it's unique so we're starting this video in the placa de instituto and you can see
still in northern spain the temperature is not so hot like southern spain here in august but we have
the sober mates of the the outdoor eating life and very popular in spanish culture to do so everybody
comes to these plazas and get together the kids come and play and the families have a good time so
i don't know if i'm gonna be able to show everything in this video regarding the
city but i'm going to do my best to show you you know what the most attractive things are
and so there's an old town of casco antigua and there's this center here and it's got quite unique
architecture you guys quite unique uh different than other parts of spain so as i walk along
in the city i'll uh give you some brief history as well and i hope you guys enjoy this video so
stay tuned let's watch the whole thing because it's only gonna get better from here now just
a tip for you non-spanish speakers the spanish people pronounce the city Gijon like with an x it
sounds a little funny it's it's a pronunciation we're not used to but the locals will call it
and asturias and so it's a thursday night here it's pretty bustling
luckily my girlfriend and i she's right here Keri, Keri we got lucky and we found a hotel you guys
for 72 euros this is not the cheap vacation you're looking for if you come to spain um 72 euros is
the cheapest you're gonna find and we got a decent hotel but everything is going for 100 150 200 and
more especially here in august which is the month of vacation for locals i'm now situated in paseo
de begona there's a park here where kids play a church over there a cathedral yeah another one
and we have these palm trees these are palm trees native to the canary islands interestingly enough
they thrive here in northern spain in a temperate a maritime climate doesn't get too hot
and it doesn't get too cold and so again they thrive here and you'll see them all throughout
northern spain cantabria pais vasco asturias and you'll often see them in these estates these vias
which are houses of wealthy people who return from the colonies the americas cuba venezuela
puerto rico dominican republic back to spain in the 19th century or before then as well
and they thrived and they brought these palm trees from the canary islands with them among
other things and so a lot of these cities in northern spain have that american influence
that you see or have seen in my videos previously
and so we're gonna head back towards the coast because there's two really important beaches
urban beaches for that matter here in gijon that people flock to in the summer on a sunny day
and if you saw me entering the city earlier in the previous video you just saw how full
it was but like i said the sobre mesa the classic spanish lifestyle in full effect here
and some sort of theater i think it could be wrong but impressive structure nonetheless
we have some typical pastries from asturias covadonga
and of course we're on calle covadonga and covadanga is a buzzword here in gijon i'll
explain why later it's too windy right now and of course a nice little coffee
as i said earlier the word covadonga the buzzword in asturias a very important word historically
and culturally and it refers to the basilica of covadunga do yourself a favor
and google just google covadonga and see what pops up a lot of
things will pop up mostly incredible pictures and landscape scenery and so
as i mentioned earlier the moorish people occupied the majority of the iberian peninsula um before of
course spain became spain and there was a key battle in covadonga the battle of covadunga
in the year 722 where the christians defeated the moorish people thus starting the reconquest
of spain pushing the moorish people south and south and south all the way to granada
and eventually expelling them permanently there's still lots of arabic moorish remains such as the
alhambra the mesquite etc in spain you'll see them all over the place especially in andalusia
the most people did occupy for some years here in gijon although it wasn't really that significant
and if it wasn't for the defeat of the moorish people in covadonga
perhaps spain would have been different today and so it was a very strategic battle don palayo
changed the complete trajectory of spanish history forever
and as a result spain went on to have one of the greatest empires the world has ever seen
the spanish empire the conquest of the americas and a lot of what you see here these ideas
came from the spaniards creating new architectural ideas
in places like cuba havana santo domingo dominican republic cartagena colombia canacas venezuela etc
and it's very interesting asturias has a unique history that
for me it really calls attention to that another place in spain that is very uh significant
in terms of immigration a couple places and port cities that were really important
the canary islands one strategic location but also Cadiz spain and i have some videos in cadiz spain
sort of talking about that karis and to the west there palos de
la la frontera were two important port cities from which christopher columbus and his crews
embarked on the great voyages exploring the americas four separate voyages
and that of course also changed the history of spain and the world calle corrida busy street
we're heading that way and so calle corrida in that area you'll see has
a lot to do with the way that gehon evolved once its own history began
to change and once it became a very busy port city with iron and coal for example
the city began to thrive also trade between the americas here was permitted and established
i believe in the 18th century that also helped it thrive and so we'll head to that part of the
city so you can see the connections that i just mentioned and wow is this calle corrida yes it
is just look at all the people you guys wow calle corrida busy streets mostly pedestrian
gijon is bigger than i expected i said it's the 15th biggest city in spain
however if you combine you look at the metropolitan area
oviedo aviles to the west of us gijon it has a very large metropolitan area over 800 000 people
and in that case it's more like the eighth biggest metropolitan area in all of spain
and just look at this architecture here you guys like i don't know don't exist
i don't remember seeing this in madrid you guys nope
it's very distinct and so we've been on what's called the camino de santiago the way of st
james we've been hiking for hundreds of kilometers literally and so we're exhausted we're spending a
night here in a hotel and we have been sort of away from urban civilization so to speak
the last place i was in that was a big city was santander so between here in santander
we've been crossing traversing asturias and it is some of the most beautiful countryside
i've ever seen in my life you can see the videos of the of those journeys you know each day
in succession on my channel here just go to the videos and look up uh the previous videos
from the community santiago and we've encountered a lot of interesting things a lot of the way
a lot of nice people a lot of animals a lot of great landscapes countryside just absolutely
stunning landscape you guys asturias is a treasure a cove of treasure
and so here we're going to enter the old town and this is where we walked into the city earlier
i was narrated in spanish from yesterday's video it's windy here too you guys
she's cold because the rest of spain here in august is a very hot place
oppressively hot okay so we're entering the port marina area
and it's i want to say a brisk 65 degrees and windy here you guys it's chilly
early august the very beginning of august and here in the distance is the old town casco antiguo
and a little sign that says for you english speakers that might have trouble pronouncing
myself included um look at all the boats the sailboats the yachts wow
ooh that sun now give me that sun and so gijon has had some tumultuous history it was burned down
i think in the 1300s completely burned down so there's not a lot of
pre-roman history or medieval history for that matter it was completely burned down
it was also destroyed during the spanish civil war in the 1900s the 1930s 1930s 1936 i believe and so
it didn't really start thriving until they established rail networks between other places
like oviedo to the south madrid allowing them to export their iron steel their coal
and then of course establishing trade between the americas but lots of interruptions in history have
made the place kind of uh have to restart multiple times
so these big pipes this guy culture is
definitely one of a kind here in asturias especially for spain and you just saw them playing
we got lucky because that was unplanned that was unscripted and wow they just came and
gave us a show for free i just i had to do a live stream i did a live stream on it so
you can see that if you want but just look how beautiful the old town looks
and this the sky it looks like it's gonna storm it's sunny
over there it's raining this is typical asturias you guys okay you guys so continuing along
and you see how the the buildings have that moldy look a little bit it's not ugly but it just shows
that the weather here there's more moisture in the air and as a result buildings
have that coloration and wow look at this look at this street
interesting we found the street to get some food oh yeah everybody is out
look at a lot of places to eat lots of places to eat and a happy dog hola hola
right here we're gonna eat here you guys but just look at this street coma is
this is where you get some food if you're in if you're in
i think the prices might be a little bit higher but just look at the environment
it is interesting the clan el clan wow let's keep checking it out interesting
evening scene here it's almost 8 o'clock and this is when people come out to eat
have dinner between 8 and 11 and free pandemic even later than that sometimes
wow it's so great to see
the euros are definitely circulating in gijon that's for sure everything here is more expensive
than southern spain certainly wow look at all the people ah look at all the lovely people
this year i think most of these people are spaniards they're doing uh tourism within
their own country not risking going abroad just because it's a hassle to go abroad right now
not because it's too dangerous but you know you gotta buy a pcr test here a pcr test there so yeah
okay guys so it's almost 9 30 pm we had some cachopos wow i didn't record because there was
music can't put copyright music on the video but wow this area is just
amazing buen suceso it's called the street it is just loaded with people
and look at all the people eating like this makes me so happy seeing everybody out just
enjoying their lives it is like loaded like we have like four or five blocks here
just restaurant after restaurant after restaurant and here in august it is all full
so we're gonna go grab an ice cream and then it's late so we're gonna go to sleep and tomorrow
part two of the video will continue we'll show you
the old town what i was planning on showing you in this part but we got distracted so
we'll see that tomorrow in the second half of the video
but i just love these walking and talking tours telling the history showing the current scene
freezing our butts off even though it's august
august in spain freezing and we're gonna go for ice cream
one of my subscribers told me that regma has a really good ice cream so ela is ice
cream and well ice cream shop in spanish so we'll pick this up tomorrow morning guys
you