Author: Wynette Richards

One thing we’ve noticed about Asturias (vs. Basque Country and Cantabrica) is that the houses are more colorful. I really enjoy that. Some photos:

Yesterday we noticed on a tourist map that there was a bufone at a beach only 2 miles from Llanes so we decided to walk there at high tide when the bufones are at their glory. (Charlie mentioned bufones in a previous post.) When we were nearly there, I asked a man who was walking up from the beach if he knew where to find the bufone. He said there were no bufones at this beach. We certainly didn’t see any. But, he said “merece la pena” (it’s worth the trouble) to do the steep walk down to the beach.

I got a thrill hearing him say that (“merece la pena”) as it is one of the phrases Pimsleur teaches in their Spanish audio courses. It’s fun to hear the native speakers say something you’ve learned. (I’ll digress a little here for those interested in learning Spanish: The Pimsleur Spain Spanish course teaches “merece la pena” but the Pimsleur Latin American Spanish course teaches “vale la pena.”)

Of course, it was another amazing beach. We cannot believe how many stunning walks there are along this coast. We cannot believe this area is not as famous as, say, Tuscany, but, we are glad that it isn’t yet spoiled by tourism. The Spanish people know about it and flock here in the summer to get away from the heat in central and southern Spain. But this time of the year there is very little tourism.

We decided to walk back there again today at low tide. But there was not a huge difference between high and low tide this time. (Only about a meter.) It was still worth the trouble to visit the beach again.

Javier is our airbnb host.

He’s the nicest man. A real sweetheart. He met us the first day and showed us around and gave us instructions for things, not too much, not too little.

Shortly after he left after showing us around, we noticed the door mat:

I messaged Javier and told him we got a kick out of Route 66 on his doormat (didn’t think to say it that way then) and told him we lived on Route 66.

He wrote back saying that was “fantastico”. He said he is a motorcyclist and makes many trips through Europe and Africa and he wants to do Route 66 on his motorcycle.

In case you have any preconceived ideas about motorcycle riders, Javier also owns and runs a beautiful home goods store here in Llanes named “Mi Casa” (photos below). And this airbnb is amazing. Very pretty and comfortable.

We had a lazy day. This morning we took a short walk along a small river (small even by NM standards) to a tiny town on the outskirts of Llanes.

We spent the middle of the day indoors in our airbnb enjoying the rain outdoors, and thunder and lightening, the first on this trip.

After the lightning stopped, but not the rain, we went to the same restaurant as yesterday for lunch (3:00 pm). It was fine, but we didn’t enjoy the food as much today as we did yesterday. We planned to order 3 dishes to share (1 first and 2 seconds). After we’d named the two seconds the waiter said with his voice and his hands “Enough.” And, of course, he was right. We only ordered the two dishes and we brought some home with us.

The weather cleared up later in the day and we took a walk along Paseo de San Pedro, the cliff walk along the ocean on the northwestern edge of the city.

Highlights from today: We explored the other two beaches in Llanes at both low tide and high tide. And had a great lunch in between.

I thought I might be too tired to blog tonight but think I’ll give it a try. It always helps to pick out a few photos to get going. We caught a bus this morning to a town that is a little past where we stopped walking the camino last week. We wanted to walk a bit more of the camino starting there. We chose an alternate route that goes along the ocean’s edge. (The main camino there is more inland.) Once the bus let us off, it took a bit of walking off-camino to get to that alternate camino path, but it was worth it. We didn’t have much info about this path. The single guide that suggested it as an alternate route didn’t give us much info except a map. We ended up being awed by it. Charlie said “if this were in the US, this would be a national park.” I agree. Well, at least a state park. But it’s just another amazing walk along Spain’s north Atlantic coast. We saw about 6 other hikers the whole time.

We finished our walk in Ribadesella and had an excellent menu del día there. Then we caught the little Feve train back to Llanes.

We ended up walking about 8.2 miles total with 270 feet up and 390 down.

Yesterday we traveled from to the city of Oviedo (population 220,000) to the much smaller city of Llanes (population 14,000). Both population figures from 2018. It was a 1-1/2 hour bus ride.

We have an airbnb here and will stay a week before we head back to the States.

We spent much of today strolling around town, learning our way around, getting some info about hikes and tides at the tourist office, and then making some plans for how we want to spend our days here. And, of course, going to the grocery store for coffee pods for our airbnb’s nespresso-like coffee machine.

To me, Llanes feels much larger than 14,000 population. There are many many restaurants and bars and grocery stores. It’s on the camino so we see pilgrims walking through. (Today I went to a China store to get some paper to do our planning on. A pilgrim couple from Australia were in line with me. They were excited about the rubber pole tips they had found there for €1. They did look just like the $10 pole tips I got at REI.)

There are three small beaches right in town and an amazing beach cliff walk.

After breakfast this morning, we headed up to the cathedral (5 minute walk) where the Camino Primitivo begins. From there we followed the camino markers to the edge of Oviedo and then beyond for a few miles. We were missing walking, wanting to get a little exercise, wanting to see the Primitivo.

We thought we’d be able to catch a bus back but the schedule didn’t work out so we called a taxi. 16 euros. Well worth it.

Here are some more photos:

Across the street from our airbnb we have noticed these two windows always open since we arrived on Thursday (the two windows middle row, left).

Through rain or sun or cold they have been open. There has been a single coat hanging in the window most of the time so I was starting to think it was an abandoned apartment where someone moved out and left the windows open. But yesterday another coat showed up in the window, and possibly some shoes.

I know the Spanish, and Europeans in general, like fresh air, but it’s hard to imagine not shutting the windows when temps are down into the mid or low 40s at night and it is often raining. I thought, well maybe it is their drying room (is there such a thing?) and they never close the windows. Any better ideas? Wild and crazy ideas will not be rejected.

Our Airbnb is in the old town and close to a lot of action. Reviews for it had some complaints about the noise at night. We took this place because it fit our needs best in other ways, fingers crossed our earplugs would be effective enough. The windows are quite modern and “soundproof”. We do hear people talking and laughing and shouting in the streets all night, but it hasn’t been too bad with the good windows and it hasn’t kept us awake.

Things don’t get going until around 10:00 so we decided to try to stay up that late and go out and see what is going on while we are normally asleep. It actually seemed pretty mellow. Just a lot of people out sitting or standing in the street talking. We passed restaurants where people were just starting their dinner. One had a line of people waiting to get in.

Here are some photos. As you probably know, cellphone photos really light things up so it was actually darker than the photos appear. They sky was black, not blue.