Pola de Siero

Pola de Siero paints its eggs and pours its cider. The Asturian market town — capital of the Siero council in the green heart between Oviedo and Gijón — owns one of the region's singular festivals: Les Comadres y los Güevos Pintos, above all the Easter Tuesday of the Painted Eggs, when the town fills with hand-decorated eggshells in traditional Asturian motifs — a folk-art fair declared of tourist interest, unique in the region, with dulzaina pipes, traje del país and the plaza as open-air gallery. It is the domestic art of the Asturian farmhouse promoted to civic identity, and Pola guards it jealously.

The other liquid constant is cider: Siero's llagares press the apples of the surrounding valleys, the espicha — the cellar feast around the barrel — is the local parliament, and the escanciado's long pour is learned before arithmetic. The town's Tuesday market has served the comarca since medieval charters; the Romanesque of San Pedro and the indiano houses of returned emigrants decorate the parishes. Musical life keeps the register the concert record describes — bands, choirs, church music and touring visits at the town's cultural centre, with Asturian pipes never far. Eggs like jewels, apples like currency: Pola de Siero keeps Asturias's calendar in colour.