23 May 2014

Local Tips for Fairytale Town Oviedo in Northern Spain

Meet Victor, who moved to Dublin from Oviedo in Spain a few years ago. Here he shares his local tips for visitors to his home town, described by one famous celebrity as being like a ‘fairytale’.

Name: Victor Martinez

Role at Homestay: Senior Software Engineer

Nationality: Spanish

Hometown: Oviedo, Asturias

Tell us about Oviedo

Oviedo is a town in the north of Spain, the capital of the region of Asturias. Aside from the historical significance of the region, Oviedo is known as a university town and as the beginning of the original Camino de Santiago. It’s also the birthplace of the Formula One driver, Fernando Alonso.

What’s something you can only do in Oviedo?

Well as far as I know it’s the only city with a statue of Woody Allen. He filmed some of “Vicky Cristina Barcelona” there and we pretty much had to make him a statue after he said: “Oviedo is a delicious, exotic, beautiful, clean, pleasant, tranquil and pedestrianised city. It is as if it did not belong to this world, as if it did not exist ... Oviedo is like a fairy-tale.” We’re pretty grateful for that.

I’m a massive football fan and a shareholder in our local team Real Oviedo. So obviously I would tell visitors to the city to go and watch a match in the Carlos Tartiere stadium. We made the news in 2012 as the club was facing closure until tens of thousands of people around the world bought shares. I’d also tell people to take a trip to Gijón on the coast which is about half an hour away.

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What’s the best meal you’ve ever eaten in Oviedo?

Living in Ireland I miss Spanish food so I’m going to say fabada asturiana, which is a slow cooked dish of beans, paprika, chorizo and bacon in a tomato sauce. My absolute favorite is cachopo, which is two breaded steaks filled with ham and cheese and then fried.

What’s your top insider tip for visitors to Oviedo?

Next to Oviedo there’s a little mountain called “Monte Naranco”. From the top on a clear day you can see the sea and the town of Gijón, which is about 30 km away. Not many people know about this so it’s very peaceful up there.

What and where was your most memorable holiday trip?

In the year 2000 while I was in high school I spent a month in Kettering, England staying in a homestay for a month. I was with a group of people from all over Spain who I’d never met before. I’ve kept in touch with the family over the years and some of my best friends to this day are from that trip. Given that we were from all over Spain and we didn’t have much money a lot of the time, it was hard to meet each other but we’ve still always managed to stay in touch. So far we’ve been to Madrid, Seville, Barcelona, London, Dublin, and Berlin together. Who knows where we’ll head next?

Where in the world is your next trip to?

It’s a secret. I’m going to a friend’s stag party so he can’t find out!

Check out our homestays in Oviedo.