The Asturian presence at the Lorient Interceltic Festival —An Oriant— is never confined to the stages. Alongside musicians, dancers, filmmakers and visual artists, the Government of the Principality maintains an institutional space presenting Asturies to the French public as a destination with a distinctive identity. The stand provides tourism information in French on culture, gastronomy, cider, landscapes and sustainable ways of travelling, aimed at those discovering the country during the festival and considering turning that first encounter into a future visit.
The institutional participation has particular significance in 2026. This year marks the fortieth anniversary of the Principality’s first official presence in Lorient, which began in 1986, while the Asturian delegation numbers around 150 people. Throughout the festival, which runs until 9 August, the representation combines traditional music and dance with film, visual arts and contemporary creation. The tourism stand complements that programme and introduces visitors to the territory behind what they see and hear in the streets and venues of An Oriant.
The available material presents Asturies through its different regions, coastline, mountains, fishing towns, Pre-Romanesque heritage, the Way of St James and a network of villages and rural areas offering alternatives to the best-known routes. The official Tourism of Asturias website also has a complete French-language version featuring nature, culture, gastronomy, rural tourism, routes, accommodation and ways of travelling around the territory.
Gastronomy occupies an important place in this promotion. Asturian cuisine is presented as closely connected to the landscape and local production, from cheeses and seafood to meat, garden produce, traditional desserts and, of course, cider.
Following the inclusion of Asturian cider culture on UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in December 2024, the Principality has strengthened its promotion as both a cultural and tourism experience. The information available in Lorient explains to French visitors that Asturian cider is not merely a drink, but a social and cultural practice with its own vocabulary, gestures, spaces and celebrations.
Lorient is an especially suitable setting for this message. Brittany and Asturies share strong cider cultures, although their methods of production, drinking customs and traditions differ. The festival provides an opportunity to explain those particularities to an audience already familiar with the world of apples and able to understand the cultural importance of the llagar, the espicha and the traditional pouring of cider.
Landscapes form another of the stand’s main themes. The promotion combines sea and mountains while attempting to move beyond the most familiar images. The western coast, the mining valleys, inland forests, Biosphere Reserves, mid-mountain routes and villages provide opportunities for longer journeys spread across different parts of the territory.
Asturies has seven Biosphere Reserves and protected areas including the Picos de Europa, Somiedu, Redes, Ponga, Las Ubiñas-La Mesa and Fuentes del Narcea, Degaña e Ibias. The tourism offer allows visitors to combine hiking, nature watching, ethnographic heritage and rural tourism with an introduction to traditional activities that remain part of everyday life in many villages.
This approach is well suited to an audience drawn to Lorient by Celtic and Atlantic cultures, traditional music, native languages and maritime landscapes. Tourism promotion therefore finds a receptive setting: someone who hears an Asturian bagpipe, listens to artists speaking Asturian or watches a traditional dance performance may later become interested in the group’s place of origin, its festivals, villages and the settings where those traditions remain alive.
The visit by Vanessa Gutiérrez, Asturias’ Regional Minister for Culture, Language Policy and Sport, to the Principality’s stand underlined the connection between the artistic programme and institutional promotion. The Asturian agenda in Lorient also includes meetings with Breton and Cornish representatives during an edition in which Cornwall is the featured nation. Tourism, culture and institutional relations therefore form part of the same international presence.
After four decades of official participation, Asturies is reaffirming its presence: the performances present a living culture, while the stand provides context and offers ways to discover it in its own territory.
An Oriant also serves as a gateway to Asturies, in the hope that the curiosity awakened by a bagpipe, a dance, a landscape or a glass of cider will eventually become a journey.
