The ghost town of Perlora, one of the most incomprehensible abandonments in Spain

I have been publishing articles about abandoned villages in Spain for years. In many cases, the abandonments are logical and understandable.

Yellow Dog Village, a ghost town that looks as if people have suddenly run away
Kitsault, a perturbing town abandoned since 1983 but that seems recently evacuated

For example, when a town was created to house mine workers and their families, it is normal for that place to end up abandoned when the exploitation of that deposit is finished. However, there are few abandonments as incomprehensible as the holiday town in the parish of Perlora, in the municipality of Carreño, located between the cities of Gijón and Avilés, in the centre of the Principality of Asturias.

This small town was founded in 1954, during Franco's dictatorship, as an initiative of the regime's Obra Sindical de Educación y Descanso (Trade Union for Education and Leisure). Its purpose was to serve as a holiday destination for working families for two weeks a year. Its location was ideal, as it is situated next to the coast, and it also had all kinds of services, including sports fields, a church and its own train station. For years, Perlora became an idyllic holiday destination.

The Obra Sindical de Educación y Descanso was dissolved in 1977 and Perlora passed into the hands of the Spanish government, which in 1982 ceded it to the newly formed regional government of the Principality of Asturias until 2006, when holiday activity in that town ceased. The Asturian government entrusted the site to a consortium of companies in 2007, but disputes between it and the regional government ended in 2010 with the end of the concession. Since then, Perlora has been abandoned.

This state of abandonment has ended up leaving its homes and services in a pitiful state. An absurd situation that surely has to do with the fact that Perlora was a Francoist initiative, something uncomfortable for an Asturian government that, except for a parenthesis between 2011 and 2012, has been in the hands of the socialists since 1999. A few days ago, the always interesting Youtube channel @hilux_aventura published an interesting video exploring this ghost town (the video is in Spanish, you can activate automatic English subtitles in the bottom bar of the player):

You can see here some screenshots from this video, which has some fabulous aerial shots recorded with a drone. Here we see a general image of Perlora. On the right we see Güelgues beach, one of the two located next to this holiday town. The other beach is called Carranques and is to the east of Perlora (to the left of the area framed in this image).

In this fantastic aerial shot we see some of the sports facilities in Perlora. We can also see many of its houses, some of which were built to imitate the characteristic shape of Asturian granaries.

The sad current state of one of the houses in Perlora. It is incomprehensible that with the needs that exist in terms of housing, a public administration allows an entire holiday town to end up like this.

The old Perlora restaurant. In the Hilux Aventura video you can see images of this site at the time when this holiday town was active.

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Main image: @hilux_aventura.