Cudillero

If the Latin cubiculum hypothesis is correct, Cudillero named a refuge or primitive cabin in this fold of the Cantabrian cliff — Latin cubiculum originally designated a small room, usually for sleeping, and by extension a shelter. The Asturian form Cuideiru preserves the characteristic bable diphthongisation (-eiro where Castilian gave -ero, parallel to caldero/caldeiro). The alternative anthroponymic hypothesis proposes a medieval personal name Cudillus without firm attestation. Whatever the origin, Cudillero is one of the most photographed fishing villages on the Peninsula: the houses, painted in vivid colours, stack like an amphitheatre against the vertical cliff, with the natural harbour at the bottom of the funnel. The locals are called pixuetos and speak an Asturian variant, pixueto, with its own maritime vocabulary.