Tazones

The name Tazones traces back to Latin roots. According to scholar Xosé Lluis García Arias, in his book *Pueblos asturianos: el porqué de sus nombres*, the name derives from "Stationes," the plural of "Stationem."

The two quarters of San Miguel and San Roque have been officially designated a Historic-Artistic Ensemble since 17 June 1991. The parish church stands in the San Miguel quarter and dates from 1950. The original church, which was located in San Roque, was burned in 1936 during the Civil War.

Almost nothing survived, only a figure of the Niño Manolín and a crucifix, making these the oldest objects in the current building. The rest of the statues, including images of San Roque, the Virgen de Covadonga, the Sagrado Corazón, San Antonio, and two angels of the Virgen del Rosario, were acquired in 1950 for the reopening. Also in San Roque, the Casa de las Conchas is a house whose entire façade is covered in shells of different shapes, sizes, and colours.

The coastline around Tazones is unusually rich in dinosaur tracks. On the beach's rocky shore, about 120 metres from the information panel at the entrance to the sand, tridactyl footprints from bipedal dinosaurs are visible at low tide on a grey stratum of the Tereñes formation, some forming a clear trail. A further 480 metres along, the Vega formation contains another tridactyl print alongside an enormous impression identified as the handprint of a sauropod.

On the cliffs to the left of the road leading to the lighthouse, access is signposted, there are further tracks from both bipedal and quadrupedal dinosaurs, including a tail-drag mark. In November 2018, members of the Muja museum recovered a footprint from a bipedal carnivore in the Tazones cliffs, an operation that required a fire service helicopter due to the difficult access. The print shows three relatively long, claw-tipped toes; the animal is estimated to have stood over two and a half metres tall.

The Tazones lighthouse sits in the hamlet of Villar, within the parish of Tazones and the municipality of Villaviciosa. It has been in operation since 1864 and was electrified in 1928; a fog siren was added in 1953. It stands on the Punta del Olivo at 127 metres above sea level, within a 2,000-square-metre walled garden.

The sandstone building has two floors and an octagonal tower built in rectangular ashlar with chamfered corners, housing a 37-step iron spiral staircase leading to the lantern, installed in 1945. A commemorative plaque on the north face reads "Faro de Villaviciosa. Año de 1864." The white-walled, red-roofed lighthouse has a range of 20 nautical miles.

Tazones is a small fishing village in the municipality of Villaviciosa, in the cider country of Asturias. Its brightly coloured sailors' houses hang on the slopes above the Cantabrian Sea, and its two quarters, San Miguel and San Roque, have been protected as a historic ensemble since 1991. From the Mirador de les Muyeres, the village women kept watch on the sea and the boats until the late 1970s.

In 1517 the young Charles of Ghent, the future Emperor Charles V, first set foot on Spanish soil here, and every August the village re-enacts the landing in a festival of tourist interest in Asturias. In San Roque, the Casa de las Conchas has its whole façade covered in shells. At low tide, three-toed dinosaur footprints show on the rocks of the beach, and a path climbs to the lighthouse, working since 1864.

Tazones joined Los Pueblos Más Bonitos de España in 2019. The label is awarded by a private association, not the state: a village applies and is audited against around 40 criteria, from how its historic buildings are conserved to the upkeep of its streets, and members are reviewed and can lose it. Tazones is one of 5 members in Asturias, out of 126 in Spain. See all heritage towns in Asturias.