Charles I Square and the palaces of Calle del Agua

Chapter 5/12 · Villaviciosa

We are in Charles I Square, on the old Calle del Agua, now named after José Caveda y Nava. The monument, unveiled in 1970, recalls the stay in the town of the young King Charles I, the future Emperor Charles V, in 1517. On the front of the pedestal you will see the imperial eagle, which appears on the coat of arms of Villaviciosa.

Beside the square rises the Casona de Valdés, a large three-storey mansion with a long wooden gallery under the eaves and two family coats of arms. Its present structure dates from 1806, and it is considered the most outstanding building of El Ancho, the bourgeois boulevard of the 19th century. Very close by is the former Peón Palace, from the mid-18th century, with a square tower on its front; it was the San Francisco school and is now a care home for the elderly.

On this same street, on the corner of the square that bears his name, José Caveda y Nava was born in 1796: a historian, politician and academician. In 1839 he published the «Collection of poems in the Asturian dialect», the first printed book with texts in Asturian, which became a model for later writers in that language.

A few steps away is the house where Charles I slept.

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