La Regenta: Oviedo as Vetusta

The novel opens in the sleep of a hot afternoon: "La heroica ciudad dormía la siesta." Above Vetusta rises the cathedral tower, which Clarín calls a romantic poem in stone. From its height the Magistral, Don Fermín de Pas, turns a telescope toward the Colonia, while the altar boy Celedonio creeps up behind to follow its aim. Spanish sources identify the real tower in Oviedo as the one Clarín used; it is 80 metres high, in five stages.

Visitor guidance: The cathedral stands on the Plaza de Alfonso II el Casto; the tower is visible from the surrounding old-town streets.

From the tower, Celedonio boasts that the telescope shows part of the casino billiard table, beside the church of Santa María, and that he has watched the ivory balls roll. The Casino is where Vetusta's men gather, and its president is Don Álvaro Mesía, head of the liberal party. A literary tour identifies it with the building that is now the Asturias High Court. The pin marks that area, not a certain doorway.

Location precision: The novel only says the casino stands beside the church of Santa María; one literary tour names the High Court building and the pin follows it.

The Espolón is where Vetusta goes to be seen. When the old canon Ripamilán learns that the Regenta has left the cathedral for a walk, he seizes the Magistral's arm and cries, "¡Al Espolón!" The Magistral hides how eagerly he wants to get there. Clarín's young ladies wear bright dresses on the Espolón and the Paseo Grande all year. A literary tour identifies the Espolón with today's Campo de San Francisco, whose upper end still has the Paseo de los Curas.

Location precision: The novel names the Espolón without a map; a literary tour places it in the Campo de San Francisco, so the pin marks the park, not a particular path.

Visitor guidance: The Campo de San Francisco is a public park in the city centre.

Vetusta's theatre, "our Coliseum on the Plaza del Pan", is an old playhouse that threatens to fall down, and spectators go wrapped against the wind. Ana takes her seat in the Vegallana box, and heads turn. In the third act of Don Juan Tenorio, doña Inés in her cell looks to her like herself, a revelation of passionate poetry. A literary tour places the theatre where the Biblioteca de Asturias now stands.

Location precision: The novel gives the name Plaza del Pan; a literary tour identifies the theatre site with the Biblioteca de Asturias, and the pin marks that area.

Visitor guidance: The Biblioteca de Asturias, the regional library, occupies the site today.

The duel is fixed for pistols, with twenty-five paces and the right to advance five. Quintanar's party drives to the walls of the Vivero, the Marquis's estate, and enters the oak wood where months before he had searched for his wife with the Magistral. The ex-regent dies of a pistol shot. The Vivero is an invention of the book; no real place is tied to it, so this stop has no pin.

Location precision: The Vivero is the Marquis's estate in the novel and the cited sources identify no real place for it.

After everything, Ana decides she will go to confession again. She enters the cathedral, and like someone returning to her homeland she feels tears of tenderness. Later the acolyte Celedonio goes from chapel to chapel closing the gates, reaches the Magistral's, and finds the Regenta fainted. She wakes to the sensation of the cold, slimy belly of a toad on her mouth.

Location precision: The novel never says which of the cathedral's chapels is the Magistral's; the pin marks the cathedral.

Visitor guidance: The cathedral is in the old town, beside the statue square.

Today Oviedo greets the novel with a statue of La Regenta on the Plaza de Alfonso II el Casto, opposite the cathedral. Guided literary tours of the novel meet beside the statue, facing the cathedral whose tower opens the book, and finish in the Campo de San Francisco, the park that other guides link to the novel's Espolón. It is the easiest place to start or end a walk through Clarín's Vetusta, with the cathedral right in front of you.

Visitor guidance: The statue stands in the open square in front of the cathedral.