![](https://img.travelfeed.io/juancar347%2F20191118T132757806Z-Asturias%20septiembre%202012%20401.jpg)

After a millennium of its existence, many of the main cultural buildings of the Pre-Romanesque or Asturian Art, continue to exercise their work and constitute a reference for pilgrims who venture to travel the various roads of the Principality of Asturias, which are directed towards Oviedo and the Cathedral of San Salvador, however, go to Compostela, the resting place of the supposed remains of the Apostle Santiago el Mayor.

![](https://img.travelfeed.io/juancar347%2F20191118T132821436Z-Asturias%20septiembre%202012%20408.jpg)

Many of them converge in the capital of the Principality, as we have said, they often go through councils that stand out not only for their age, but also for the beautiful and sometimes rugged surroundings that surround them.

![](https://img.travelfeed.io/juancar347%2F20191118T132833260Z-Asturias%20septiembre%202012%20414.jpg)

This makes, after all, that in its displacement, the pilgrim has the opportunity to cross deep forests and mountains, which alternate with fertile meadows of work and grazing cattle, in an eternal love-hate relationship, metaphorically speaking, between Men and nature.

![](https://img.travelfeed.io/juancar347%2F20191118T132846293Z-Asturias%20septiembre%202012%20418.jpg)

One such council is that of Villaviciosa, the cider region par excellence, which formerly received the name of Maliayo and where, possibly, the greatest number of these authentic monuments are located, inheritance of a distant time, terribly dark, that they still retain numerous secrets that have not been fully clarified by historians who have taken care of them.

![](https://img.travelfeed.io/juancar347%2F20191118T132858722Z-Asturias%20septiembre%202012%20425.jpg)

It would be the case, for example, of this beautiful and monumental temple of Priesca, dedicated to the figure of the Savior - let us not forget, in addition, that within the many pilgrimage roads, there have always been routes of 'Saviors', who directed the faithful and pilgrims towards the edge of the world, following the direction of the churches marked with such denomination - and whose plant already induces us, at a first glance, to admire its curious and at the same time mysterious idiosyncrasy.

![](https://img.travelfeed.io/juancar347%2F20191118T132920634Z-Asturias%20septiembre%202012%20422.jpg)

Erected in the year 921, during the reign of King Fruela - that son of Don Pelayo, who according to legend was killed by a bear, a theme that is collected in the sculptures of the monastery of San Pedro de Villanueva, in Cangas de Onís and whose body was believed, also, buried in the old dolmen on which the chapel of Vera Cruz sits - for its appearance, you have the feeling that more than a temple, one is located in front of one of those old palaces, including those that used to be common among Northern European communities, such as the Vikings.

![](https://img.travelfeed.io/juancar347%2F20191118T132939891Z-Asturias%20septiembre%202012%20426.jpg)

It has, like many other temples of its class and time, with mysterious places, such as the so-called 'Chapels of San Miguel', completely sealed and inaccessible rooms, whose use and function, researchers have not yet agreed on, so that it would be possible to speculate with a function of a spiritual nature, similar to the ancient tradition of the European rural peoples, that left a small opening in the roof of their houses so that the soul of the deceased could rise to the heavens.

![](https://img.travelfeed.io/juancar347%2F20191118T133008413Z-Asturias%20septiembre%202012%20456.jpg)

It contains, perhaps in greater numbers than other similar buildings, the beautiful lattices, authentic works of art and skill, made from a single piece of sandstone, which show, in the development of the radii of their circles, primitive crismones, or also , allusions, similar to those of Jainism, about time and the different periods in which, according to numerous ancient philosophies, this was dissolved in a series of ages that obeyed the cycles of birth, development and death, to which they are subject not only individuals, but also cultures.

![](https://img.travelfeed.io/juancar347%2F20191118T133023987Z-Asturias%20septiembre%202012%20453.jpg)

Priesca, on the other hand, is a small and charming village, which still shows, along with its large houses, some brightly painted, that traditional element and of purely Neolithic origins, which are the granaries: small granaries raised on four pilasters that prevented that the mice and other animals access the food stored in them.

![](https://img.travelfeed.io/juancar347%2F20191118T133038232Z-Asturias%20septiembre%202012%20455.jpg)

NOTICE: Both the text and the accompanying photographs are my exclusive intellectual property.

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