Prince Mario-Max Schaumburg-Lippe: Aboard a Fishing Boat in Llanes - Felipe, Letizia, Leonor and Sofia Honour Six Centuries of Fishermen With Asturias' Highest Village Prize

The last morning of awards week did not look like a palace morning at all. On Saturday, October 24, King Felipe VI, Queen Letizia, Princess Leonor and Infanta Sofia stood together on the bright red deck of a working fishing boat in the harbour at Llanes, strings of Spanish and Asturian pennant flags snapping overhead, the cliffs of the Cantabrian coast and the little lighthouse behind them. They had come to Asturias’ eastern coast to deliver the Premio al Pueblo Ejemplar de Asturias 2026, the Exemplary Town of Asturias Award, to the Cofradia de Pescadores Santa Ana de Llanes, the fishermen’s guild of Santa Ana, and the photograph the Royal Household chose tells the whole story: a royal family quite literally on board with the people who work the sea.

The Household shared the visit on its official Instagram account, @casareal.es, where the carousel drew 8,521 likes and 88 comments from its 1.45 million followers, while a companion reel of Llanes traditions climbed to 19,880 likes and 231 comments. The numbers matter less than the setting. After a week of concert halls and theatre carpets in Oviedo, the Crown ended its Asturian days in gumboot country, among nets, auctions and anchovies, honouring a community institution that was already old when Columbus was young.

An award for a guild founded around 1350

The citation behind the prize reads like a checklist for everything a coastal community hopes to be: sustainability, innovation, solidarity, the study and dissemination of fishing culture, and efficient management. The Cofradia de Pescadores Santa Ana de Llanes descends from the Cofradia de Mareantes de San Nicolas, founded around 1350, which makes it one of the oldest fishermen’s guilds in Asturias. For close to seven centuries, through storms, seasons and changing fleets, the guild has organised the working life of this harbour.

Its early centuries were written in whale oil. Between the 14th and 17th centuries the guild was central to the economic development of the whole area through whale fishing, when Llanes crews sailed the Cantabrian in pursuit of the great animals that passed along this coast. That history gives Saturday’s ceremony a rare depth. The family were not honouring a project, a startup or a season’s good work. They were honouring continuity itself, an institution that has adapted, century after century, without ever letting go of the harbour that created it.

From whale boats to responsible fishing

The guild the royals met on Saturday is defined by what it now protects. Today it preserves traditional fisheries, and its stated priorities are the responsible exploitation and sustainability of species and fishing grounds. That is a striking arc for an organisation born in the age of the whale hunt: the descendants of whalers have become guardians of the stock, measuring their success not only in what the boats bring home but in what remains in the water for the boats that follow.

On their tour of the port the family saw that philosophy at work at close quarters. They watched traditional inshore fishing, the small-scale artisanal work that still defines this coast, and followed the catch into the Lonja, the fish market, for the weighing and the auction. The sale here follows the rula, the traditional system of selling fish that dates to the 16th century, a piece of living commercial history that still sets the rhythm of a Llanes morning. They also saw the artisanal semi-preserving technique used for Cantabrian anchovies, the slow, skilled handwork that turns a humble fish into one of northern Spain’s most prized delicacies.

Dances, costumes and a princess’s tribute

Llanes made sure the royals saw the culture that surrounds the catch, not just the catch itself. The visit included traditional Asturian dances and the handmade aldeana and porruanu costumes of Llanes, garments sewn and worn with the same care the guild gives its nets. Against the cliffs and the green Cantabrian shoreline, it was a reminder that a fishing town’s heritage is a single cloth: the boats, the market, the kitchen and the festival all belong to one another, and the award honours the whole weave.

In her speech, Princess Leonor put that thought into words. The guild, she said, had worked for centuries to deserve this award, contributing to the economic, hospitality and tourism development of the area while conserving traditional artisanal inshore fishing, the responsible and sustainable use of species, care of the fishing grounds and the cleanliness of the coasts. It was a precise, grown-up tribute from the Princess of Asturias to the people of her own principality, and it landed in a harbour that clearly felt the honour was long overdue.

The perfect closing chapter of awards week

Saturday’s harbour ceremony closed the Princess of Asturias Awards week, and it closed it at ground level. The week had reached its glittering peak the night before, when, as our report on three generations on the blue carpet described, the family, joined by Queen Sofia, presided over the solemn ceremony at the Teatro Campoamor. That same morning, Leonor had presented the insignia to the laureates in Oviedo, welcoming Messi, Patti Smith and Julian Barnes at the start of awards day.

The contrast is the point, and it is why the Exemplary Town prize may be the most quietly important date in the Asturian royal calendar. Friday belonged to global excellence, to seed vaults, genomes and literature. Saturday belonged to a guild of fishermen founded around 1350, whose members still rise before dawn to work the same sea their ancestors worked. By ending the week in Llanes, on a red deck under strings of pennants, the Crown made its argument one final time: that excellence is not only found on the world’s stages, but also in a small harbour that has kept its traditions, its waters and its people in good order for six hundred years.

Photo: @casareal.es

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