Miles: 8.4 miles, 13 to 400 feet, up 673 feet, down 545 feet, 6 hours on the trail including stops for breakfast and, later, cold drinks Mexican restaurants: 1 Breakfasts eaten: 2 each Difficult-on-the-knees climbing gates to get over: 3 or 4 Blue albergues: 1 Italian pilgrims met: 2
Young Italian man just ahead of us on the moor trail
Another day of beautiful views, this time going right by the ocean looking down 100 feet cliffs to the surf crashing against the rocks.
Our hotel included breakfast this morning but (1) the coffee wasn’t too good, Wynette didn’t even finish hers and (2) it was a minimal pastry and juice-type breakfast. So, we stopped after about 3 miles and had eggs and toast.
When we were checking into our hotel tonight, the woman said she had immigrated from the Dominican Republic with her family when she was 16. She mentioned how “tranquil” Spain was compared to the Dominican Republic. Spain is a very safe country, a stable democracy and has a good economy. We have often thought that young people from Central and South America should consider moving to Spain since there would be no language problem. Spain, like all the first world countries has a low birth rate and needs more people.
I mentioned in an earlier post how varied each day is in terms of surfaces we walked on. Today I tried to get a photo of each change. It is more than surfaces, it the variety you see each day. Think of it as a day in the life of a pilgrim.
It is a lot of photos so I will divide them up to about eight per each post. All of the photos can be enlarged by tapping or clicking on them and from there you can go through larger photos of the whole gallery.
I will post these in backwards order so that you can scroll through them in the correct chronological order, top to bottom
We started out in Unquera, on the busy Main StreetWe crossed the bridge over the ria that divides Cantabria from Asturias, these are roughly like states. Up a steep road. On the Norte towns are at sea level and you always climb a steep hill at the start of the dayThe hill leveled off and switched to thisTransition to asphalt Going out of town
Dirt gravel road and some pilgrims Transition as we get to another tiny townThrough town Road out of town, notice the clouds stacked four high Wide gravel road Back to a highway with a nice shoulder, ahead is the first bar coffee stop
Side road transitioning to a gravel trail. Gravel trail under the A-8 freeway Lovely trail through the woods Trail crests and we see the ocean Down the trail and another road, but we just cross it Straight on to the cliffs
Cross the railroad tracks And cross the first of four climb-over gates. Hard for Wynette with her bad knee but she did them allEasy trail to the cliffs Now the trail goes west along the ocean The trail goes right up the the cliff edge The trail gets harder through the rocks and the gorse ( very prickly)The views are thrilling The view to the west
Oh-oh another cattle gateThe gets harder, then even harder after this, no photo Be sure to go around the cow flops Then a little easier We walked past a bufone, a tunnel in the cliffs where you can hear the surf booming, very impressive Past the cows (no fences between us)And the bull (luckily he was behind a fence)Over another fence. This was harder than it looks.
Two of the more famous of these regions are Andalusia in the south and Catalonia in the north east. There is a strong independence movement in Catalonia and there was a strong one in Basque Country a number of years ago — not much heard about that now, but I think people there identify more with being Basque than with being Spanish.
We started this trip in Pais Vasco (Basque Country), light green one top center of above map. Moving west, we then walked through Cantabria (dark purple). Today we crossed into Asturias (dark green). If we were going to Santiago on this trip (which we are not) we would go through Galicia. It’s fun to see the regional differences.
Of course, the big difference between Basque Country and most of the rest of Spain (except Navarra which is also a Basque region) is that the local people all speak Basque. They have kept the Basque language alive and well. All signs are in Basque and sometimes in Spanish. Luckily for us, the Basque people are also fluent in Spanish. A 100% bilingual country. The Basque and Spanish languages are completely different except for a few borrowed words. The Basques are lovely people. Good looking. Strong and proud. And kind and helpful. Basque houses are easy to recognize.
Typical Basque houses
The Basques are famous for their pinxos (aka pinchos). They are similar to Spanish tapas but more finger-foody. (Tapas are often eaten on a plate with a fork.)
Pinxos in San Sebastian
The biggest, most famous cities in Basque Country are San Sebastian and Bilbao.
Cantabria is vibrant and beautiful and with wonderful people but it is harder to say exactly what stands out here. It was nice to have overheard-conversations and signs be in Spanish. The biggest city in Cantabria is Santander.
The Spanish call the Atlantic Ocean north of Spain the “Cantabrian Sea”. It is part of the Bay of Biscay. There doesn’t seem to be any kind of independence movement here and it’s not unusual to see Spanish flags here and there. I think the people here don’t mind too much being a part of Spain.
And today we crossed over into Asturias. Asturias is famous for its cider and now the bars are often called “Sidrerias”.
We stopped at this sidreria for breakfast today.
Asturias is also famous for its fabada, a fava bean and sausage stew. We actually had a good one yesterday before we crossed over into Asturias. We are looking forward to eating many more over the next two weeks.
Fava bean stew
The biggest city in Asturias is Gijón. We won’t make it there this trip.
Looking back, saying goodbye to Cantabria. Crossing into Asturias over the ria. Asturias will be the third and final autonomous region of Spain that we’ll be in on this trip. Nice view of the Picos de Europa (which I prefer to call the “Picos de Gallo”) from the bridge crossing into Asturias. This is a photo closeup. They didn’t look nearly this close in real life.Cool albergue. We are seeing more colorful houses here in Asturias.Part of the walk was on a wild (wild!) trail through a moor close to the cliffs along the ocean. Gorgeous weather for it.Second bar stop. With all the sun we were hot and thirsty so got something cold to drink instead of coffee.Strange! Red maple leafs in the spring. They really were this bright red. Where we are sleeping tonight in tiny town of Pendueles.
