The Municipal Cemetery of La Carriona is one of the most unique in Spain. Built by architect Ricardo Marcos Bausá at the end of the 19th century, 19th century, thanks to the prosperity of the bourgeois and Indians who resided in the region, it's the largest open-air museum in Avilés, and constitutes a very important part of the town's artistic and cultural heritage, not only for its architectural and sculptural elements, but for its urbanism: it's a whole city, the city of the dead.
On our guided tour, we'll wander through its main and secondary streets, and we'll talk about the city's art, history, and memory through its pantheons and the historical figures who rest there, such as the writer Armando Palacio Valdés, the poets Marcos del Torniello and Ana de Valle, or the musician Julián Orbón. You'll also find Aviles sports figures: the athlete Yago Lamela and the footballers Jesús and Enrique “Quini” Castro.
It's part of the European Cemeteries Route and the European Association of Significant Cemeteries. You'll find works of various styles (from eclecticism and historicism to rationalism and modernism) by very important artists of the time, such as Manuel del Busto, Tomás Acha Zulaica, Armando Fernández Cueto, Ángel Arias Falcón, and Cipriano Folgueras Doiztúa. Doiztúa's sculpture for the pantheon of the Marquises of San Juan de Nieva, made in 1902, won the award for the best Spanish funerary sculpture by the magazine Adiós Cultural in 2015.
