Moments in MUJA

Jurassic Museum of Asturias, with friends/colleagues, Dalbir and Chan.


Shouldn't have stood in the way of a rampaging Allosaurus!

The view of Lastres from Chapel of San Roque.

King of Dinosaurs

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The Tyrant Lizard King, Tyrannosaurus Rex, better known as T-rex. The biggest predator of all time, ruled the Cretaceous era. It is only suiting that it is placed in the middle as the main attraction of its era.

T-rex are known as predators, capturing and killing their preys. They are widely accepted to be solitary predators, however some also believed that they hunt in small groups, known as family hunters.

What seemed to be like a couple of T-rex hunting together were actually a display of the couple "in a mating ritual" (I quote the written explanation on the wall :P )

Prior to entering the museum, there were no signs stating about this display. I wonder how parents would explain to their young kids :P

A close up of the main display of the museum, the mating T-rex'es, the only such display in a European museum!

Time Travelling

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I had always wanted to visit a museum with dinosaurs (fossils) and I somehow believed that a museum should not be called one, if it does not have some dinosaurs. That was a strong belief from my childhood days.

The Jurassic Museum of Asturias is located in the village of Colunga, near Lastres. The building is shaped like a three-toed footprint of a dinosaur. A quick search on the internet and you could find the aerial view of it.

According to the brochure, the building overlooks the beach of Lastres which, collectively with other beaches nearby, forms what is known as Dinosaur Coasts. This is due to the many tracks which were found on these areas.

The museum is divided into three parts, the shape of three toes made it even easier for segregating it. The layout is made so that any visitors would go from the Triassic part to Jurassic to Cretaceous, just like traveling in time.

There are about 15 full sized dinosaur replicas, and numerous other artifacts in glass cases. Some of which were accompanied with artist impressions of the dinosaur.

Forgotten by the sands of time.

The lightings makes for a horrific scene. Looking at the shadow of the Deinonychus reminded me of one of my favourite show, Jurassic Park. See any resemblance to the logo?

A baby sauropod (long necks) hatching from its egg.

The next post shows one of the main attraction of the Museum, the display piece from the Cretaceous era.

Quiet Town of Lastres

We arrived in Lastres in the morning, a small seaside town that we must pass to get to the Jurassic Museum of Asturias. It is the Atlantic Ocean that the town is facing. The layout of this town is very much different as compared to the towns that I had been to. This was taken from a cliff where the Chapel of San Roque is situated.

The buildings are arranged tightly next to each other on the seaside slope. It gave a different feeling, though the buildings are not aligned, but somehow they were in harmony with the landscape.

The weather on that day was extremely good, with the bright sky and cotton-like clouds.

The beach next to the town was quite rocky and the cliffs were steep as well. Check out the fishing rod of the fisherman, that must be at least 3m in length. Did not have the opportunity to see him use it, made me wonder though.

Jurassic Museum of Asturias, up ahead!

Peaks of Europe

As Covadonga is an entry point into the Peaks of Europe (Picos de Europas), we continued our journey up the mountains. The roads were really perilous, with tight bends and void of safety barriers at some parts of the journey.

The view from the mountains were spectacular.

Look closer to the photo on the bottom left and you can see the small road that we used to get up to the mountain ranges. Dalbir was the one driving and everyone in the car was getting more and more nervous as we climbed up.

After having a few stops at the view points, we decided to go back and not venture any further. We would be expecting more lakes if we continued, but we decided against it and wrapped up the day instead. It was an eye opening trip for all of us.

Covadonga

Covadonga, from Latin-Cova Dominica, "Cavern of the Lady", is a village in Asturias, northwestern Spain, among the Picos de Europa mountains where Spanish won the battle over the Moors. We visited the sanctuary of Covadonga where two famous landmarks can be found.

Basilica Of the Royal Saint Mary can be seen high up on the mountain. At first glance it really looked like a Disney castle, forgive my untrained eye, however that was the first impression on me.

Two lions were placed on both sides of the roads up the sanctuary.

To reach the Basilica, we climbed up to the Holy Cave and then went past a walkway through to emerge at the plaza of the Basilica.

The statue of Don Pelayo in front of the Basilica, the leader who led the armies in the famous Battle of Covadonga, which defeated the invading Moors.

The Basilica in all its grandeur.

Were we to come on Summer season, the whole plaza would be packed with visitors from all over, a clean view like this would be impossible.