Gulpiyuri Beach

Interesting facts

Gulpiyuri is often described as one of the smallest beaches in the world, a disc of sand only about 50 metres across.

At high spring tides the sea fills the hollow almost to the grass, swallowing most of the sand and turning the beach into a saltwater pool.

The sea reaches the beach through galleries in the limestone that run under the meadow, so the water arrives from below rather than over the shore.

Its sand is mostly fine quartz, carried in through the same underground channels that bring the tide.

The name Gulpiyuri is popularly said to mean "circle of water", a fair description of the round flooded hollow.

The same karst coast of Llanes also has bufones, blowholes through which storm waves shoot spray up out of the fields.

Why it is worth it

Gulpiyuri is a beach with no sea view. It lies in a meadow on the coast of eastern Asturias, about a hundred metres back from the cliffs, a crescent of sand some 50 metres long at the bottom of a grassy hollow — and with every tide the Cantabrian Sea fills it through passages in the rock, with small waves breaking on the sand among fields.

The hollow is karst at work. Over a very long time the sea bored a cave inland through the limestone of the cliffs; the roof of the cave eventually collapsed, leaving a circular depression that stays connected to the open sea underground. The tide therefore rises and falls here exactly as it does on the coast, and the width of the beach, around 30 metres, changes with it. At high tide the pool is at its fullest; at low water the sand stretches out and the stony mouths of the channels show at the back. The water is shallow, better for wading than swimming.

Its isolation is what has kept it in good shape. Gulpiyuri was declared a natural monument in December 2001 and belongs to the protected coastal landscape of eastern Asturias, a stretch of cliffs and small coves carved from the same rock. Walking up to it across the fields, it looks like nothing more than a pond; only from the edge does the sand appear, and with it the odd sense of watching surf arrive in the middle of a pasture.

Getting there

Gulpiyuri lies in the municipality of Llanes, just north of the village of Naves; Gijón is about 64 km to the west. The nearest airport is Seve Ballesteros–Santander (SDR), about 86 km away. The last stretch is on foot, usually from Naves or from the neighbouring San Antolín beach; an unpaved track leads to a small parking area about 200 metres from the sand.

Gulpiyuri Beach

Interesting facts

Why it is worth it

Getting there

Plan your visit

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