Colombres is a nice town just inland from the Asturian coast. With few accommodation options, it’s likely to be a day visit for most people, but it’s definitely a place full of intrigue and a rich local history. It’s the home of the “Museo de la Emigración” where you can learn all about the legacy of emigration from this part of Spain and afterwards you can walk around the town admiring the so called casas de los Indios built by the wealthy returning emigres.
Museo de la Emigración
The Emigration Museum is a good place to start to really understand what you are witnessing as you travel around Colombres. Set in an impressive blue mansion in beautiful gardens, the museum houses the Indian Archive cataloguing the long and complex story of Asturian emigration. You will need to take a dictionary with you if your Spanish isn’t up to scratch, but the exhibits are visually self-explanatory in most cases. According to the foundation’s website, its purpose is the recovery, organization and study of all types of documentation related to Asturian and Spanish emigration to America, produced throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. The museum acts as a tribute to and permanent recognition of emigration, as well as being a social and cultural meeting place between Spaniards, Asturians and emigrants, and their descendants. There were many parts that we found fascinating, but the photos of the Asturian Society locations around Latin America were particularly interesting. Being immigrants ourselves in Spain, we also loved a lot of the imagery associated with leaving your lives behind to start anew in a strange land. The poster above now adorns our wall at home!
Casas de los Indios
Come rain or shine, Colombres is a lovely place to wander around. In our case, we wish we had thought to take umbrellas! The selection of elaborate houses around town is incredible. It would have been nice to go inside one or two, but they are private houses and I guess we should be thankful that at least they are all visible from the street. If you want to learn more about each of the houses, Google Translate does a reasonable job with this excellent description. There is far too much information to replicate here.
Please let us know if you visit. It’s always great to hear your thoughts.
