Our first stop in Asturias was the town of Covadonga. Izzy and I had been there before so we knew that her parents would love and they did. The first thing that catches your eye as you arrive in town is the Basilica sitting on top of the hill. The church is dedicated to Mary and is said to have been built as a shrine to her in 722 celebrating the victory of the battle of Covadonga over the Moors. Asturias was one of the only provinces to not be conquered by the Moors in the Conquest of Spain. The fountain below in the picture has a prayer chapel up top and below is a place where people go to make a wish to get married. We were here a year ago with two friends who dipped into this fountain, they're dating now. We went inside the chapel but couldn't see much because they were having mass. The parking situation was a nightmare.
After visiting Covadonga, we set off to do something we couldn't do the last time we visited. The road was snowed over and closed. But now, we could head towards the lakes in the Picos de Europa National Park. The ascent was steep and the road was littered with cows and their patties. At times, traffic had to stop so a group of cars could wind through all the cows standing around. The guard rails at times were wood, metal, stone, and non existent. Izzy's dad held on to the door handle for dear life.
There were times when the road seemed to narrow for two cars to pass but I would just slow down and take it easy. At one point, Izzy's dad tried to move over to seat, thus making her mom and her laugh at him quite a bit. He was probably the happiest person in the car when we arrived to the lakes. The views on the way up were spectacular. There were mountain peaks as far as the eye could see.
Welcome to Lake Ercina and Lake Enol. We parked at a visitor center overlooking one of the views. Izzy's Mom set up a picnic lunch next to the car. When we went to the edge to check out the view, we noticed one lone cow had worked its way up a hill just wide enough to hold it and couldn't get down. Poor fella. We went for a hike to see the other lake that we couldn't and her dad decided it would be too much for him to go. We passed by an old mine and lots of places that had been set up for picnics.
Lake Ercina is even more beautiful than Lake Enol. It is set against a nice back drop of mountains and looks like something out of Switzerland or Austria. There is a restaurant and more parking too. Cows freely roam the place and all of them have bells so there was a symphony of bells playing everywhere. You are free to wander all around the area of the lakes but they do have some park guidelines if you want to hike from them.
I ran down and brought the car and Izzy's dad up to the other parking space after working a deal with the parking attendants to save a space for us. He enjoyed the view but really wanted to get down off the mountain. The drive down wasn't as scary as the drive up because we weren't on the cliff edge. We drove on to the town we were staying in, Llanes. Finding our hostel was a bit of a challenge as it had no street number but it turned out to be a nice place built into an old train station.
Llanes is a nice fishing port town with an old medieval part. Some of the walls have been dated to the early 13th century and visits from kings of Castille have been documented from the 16th century. The town has put their tourism office in one of the old medieval towers. What a great idea. Around the corner from it, we found an old church with nice flowers growing on the outside. We were here a year ago and didn't see any of this.
We took her parents to see the painted cubes down at the port. The colors aren't as vibrant as they were the last time we visited. It looks like its time to let the artists get down there and do some more painting. From the dock, the view of the town set against the mountains is amazing. Of course, its cloudy in the picture so its hard to tell. We had some sider and showed them how the Asturians pour it. The tradition is to hold the cup below the waste behind your back and then tip the bottle over your head and pour it without looking. Dinner was a mix of fabada, a local favorite of beans, sausage, and ham and lasaña for the not so adventurous traveler.
The next morning, we headed west and our first stop was at Torimbia beach. It has to be one of the most beautiful beaches I've ever seen. To get there, it's a 20-30 min hike down the mountainside. There were a handful of people down on the beach enjoying it. Most people were walking the hiking trails and taking in the scenery. The trail out to the furthest point of the mountain was overgrown and had obviously been used as a toilet by people caravanning there. It doesn't take away from the beauty though. The mountains look like they lunged out of the ocean to create the beautiful scenery.
We revisited another city with her parents, Ribedesella. It's further west and has some nice walks along the beach. The inlet curves like a snake into the city, creating a long beach. The town has nice houses everywhere and along one of the beach walks, there are kitchen tile looking pictures with voice explanations of the founding of the town and its place in Spanish history. We learned that Alfonso X gave the town its official charter to become part of the fledging kingdom he was building while the Moors were trying to invade Spain. This is the part of the country that never knew the effects of the Moorish conquest.
We had lunch in another small town west of Gijón, where we were served too much fish and pork. We took a long drive through the countryside and more mountain climbs to get to our hotel in Oviedo. Instead of going in to walk around the city, we decided to stay in and relax because the next day was going to be a long one.
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