Colombres

Colombres is a small locality in the municipality of Ribadedeva, in Asturias, situated in the green valley terrain above the Nansa estuary near the Cantabrian border. The village is celebrated for its exceptional collection of indianos architecture, the ornate mansions built by Asturian emigrants who returned from Cuba and other American countries in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries having made their fortunes.

The indianos houses of Colombres are among the finest examples of this architectural phenomenon in northern Spain, with elaborate tropical-influenced facades, palm trees in the gardens, and eclectic decorative details imported from across the Atlantic. The Archivo de Indianos, a museum dedicated to the emigration history, is housed in one of the most distinctive of these buildings.

For pilgrims on the Camino del Norte, Colombres is one of the more architecturally surprising stops on the Asturian section, its exotic tropical-influenced buildings appearing unexpectedly in the green Atlantic landscape of the Cantabrian coast.