Tazones

I´ve posted pictures of Tazones before, but it´s a pleasant place to go in the morning (before the tourists) when the sun shines, so here it is again. The main picture shows a little plaza and the start of a rise: everywhere in Tazones is steep, mostly on rough stone steps, but the point of showing you this square is not that. The thumbnail shows one of the shops on that square, which is a workshop and sales outlet for azabachería. Azabache is Spanish for jet, and Tazones is on a small steep walking route which takes in jet mines. Jet is said to be the consequence of drowned araucaria woodlands mixing with local minerals under pressure, millennia ago. It happened both here and in Yorkshire - as in Whitby jet - more on that later. 
The sale and working of jet in Tazones and Villaviciosa is a long-standing but threatened tradition. Threatened because the mines are getting harder to work and the small craftsmen who want to work it can´t afford to open them up for renewed exploitation. Maybe a municipal solution will be found but it hasn´t yet.
The Whitby connection is in part that, according to the local craftsmen, only two places in the world - Whitby and Tazones - produce high-quality jet. There is Asian jet of a significantly lower quality, and there is fake jet consisting of powdered jet in resin, but local craftsmen say they would rather retire than use either.
The other, controversial, part of the connection is that Tazones craftsmen say that Whitby jet has been in very short supply for a long time and that an amount of what is now sold in England as Whitby jet has in fact been sourced from Tazones. I, of course, have no idea whether there´s any truth in that; but I´m certain it´s believed.

But see the quotation shown by amandoAlentejo below. Thanks to her for that addition.

And for the extra, just a residential street in the old village, taken in a way that emphasises the steepness.