We then found a bigger plaza with ample running room to let the kids expend a considerable amount of pent up energy that built up during the car ride. Here is Sam practising hurdles over Frankie in the middle of the plaza.
A night shot of the lit up cathedral as we were eating our helados, then off to bed for our final push to Asturias.
4 September: Prior to leaving we decided to check out the cathedral. Leon is a university town and it's less conservative nature than other parts of Spain was evident in the dress code for the cathedral as Robsie had nary a problem with her shortish cut-off jeans (no problema senora!). Each of us got an audio device that provided a tour of the cathedral, and we (I mean all of us) were fascinated by the history and description of the cathedral. Here are four Griswold's listening attentively in a cathedral pew! (We should get these contraptions for the car trips!).
And absorbed attentively to the audio dialog in front of a mural, nary a whisper from these generally loud and energetic kids, amazing.
Well after the audio tour of the cathedral, we made for our accommodation in rural Asturias, and hunkered down for evening drinks and a BBQ admiring the beautiful mountains in the background. The weather was fantastic, hot and clear... Little did we suspect that this was the exception and not the rule for weather in this part of Spain!
5 September: The next day we woke up to a beautiful sunny morning, and as we all slumbered in bed we were shocked to find that the morning had rapidly deteriorated into a drab drizzly foggy cloudy sort of day. Oh well, no good going to the mountains, can't see a darn thing so off to the coast we go. Our accommodation was situated in hills between the Cantabrian Mountains (really just an extension of the Pyrenees across the northern Spain) and the coastline, so it was about a 20 minute drive directly. We took the scenic route and actually had to backtrack about 5 km along a narrow mountain road because of a car accident (bus meets car, car goes over the side of mountain about 50 m down a steep slope sort of thing) with a small army of rescue personnel to sort everything out. Eventually we made it to the fishing village of Lastres, known for its picturesque coastline and classic village clinging to a coastal hillside. The restaurant near the port served arguably the best seafood we've had to date. This region of Spain also is big on a regional cider, which Robin ordered and both of us quickly decided wasn't our cup of tea (yuck! must be an acquired taste...). We quickly ordered cerveza and vino after our thumbs down taste test of the cider.
Kids having a lolli'pop on an old anchor at the port.
The crew checking out the fishing boats with the town in the background.
We then made our way over to this beach called Torimbia (near Niembru), what a great beach. Lots of surfies around.
We hiked down to the beach in drizzle, light rain conditions. Down at the bottom there was a flag that clearly indicated that clothes were definitely considered optional on this playa! In fact this is purported to be one of the first nudist beaches in Spain on account of it being off the beaten path and requiring a bit of effort to get too.
A beach and with no people to annoy, that equates to Sam and I having a long match of beach paddle ball (unfortunately we didn't beat our record of 38 hits that was attained on the southern beaches of Spain).
So it rains consistently enough for their to be all sorts of wet weather organisms along the northern coast of Spain. Sam and Frankie each adopted several pet snails that we ended up taking with us back to our accommodation (they did go missing somewhere in the house come to think of it!) on this particular day.
A typical view of some of the rocks in the sea along this coast, very beautiful.
6 September: Well the next day was more of the same, drizzly and light rain conditions... What to do? Of course go canoeing down a river... Here are the kids all kitted out with the appropriate gear.
Prior to departure.
Here we are rafted up at the start of our Sella River descent. The Sella River is the location of a large (in terms of participants, up to 2,000 competitors) river race that occurs every early August (snow melt from the Picos de Europa keep the river pumping through the summer). It is only a 20 km race, more of a sprint really compared to the 135 km 2-day Avon Descent race back home in Perth. My understanding is that even though it attracts international competitors, only Spaniards (mostly locals) have won the race to date.
Sam, Luca and I enjoying the river's serenity...
Robsie and Frankie (Frankie you are supposed to be turned around with a paddle in the water...) tackling the whitewater, OK it was pretty tame, but there was quite a bit of running water.
And a much deserved lunch on a riverbank beach. All along the river we saw lots of fish (mostly carp sort of things, but a few salmonids in the mix) and ducks. Beautiful clear river mountain water. Well that was a great activity for the day and the gear provided to us by the rafting company kept us very cozy and warm in the inclement weather conditions. Great day!
7 September: Well the weather the next day was... Yep you guessed it, cloudy, drizzly and light rain. Here's a pic of the accommodation we had, a traditional rural house for the region. The building on the left is a typical granary sort of thing common throughout the region to keep things off the wet ground (I surmise..., apparently a similar thing found in southern England). The car was our hired Volvo which I was trying to keep under 140 kph when on any freeway (but it took great concentration to do so and a gentle occasional reminder from Robsie).
We headed into the large regional Oveido-Gijon metropolitan area of Asturias to wile away the time during this rather dismal day. After a bit of shopping in a rather bland (and quiet) mega-shopping centre in central Oveido (definitely got the sense of the Spanish economic crisis with not much being bought here...), the kids and I checked out the city's central park while Robsie had a brief excursion to Mango... This next pic demonstrates the strong spirit of play even in poor weather conditions by Frankie and Luca, simply make a cubby out of an umbrella during light showers and get on with it!
8 September: The next day we were off to Covadonga along the western edge of the Picos de Europa National Park (yep the weather is still cloudy, drizzly, light rain, but we got the sense that waiting for good weather can be a problematic proposition around here). On the way we had to stop and check out some ponies several kilometers from our accommodation that we had befriended the previous day. To our dismay we realised one of the poor creatures had gotten entwined in the fence. Here's me helping the poor soul out of his predicament.
Afterward the kids showered affection on these friendly entities.
Covadonga is renown for many things, one being two large natural lakes in the mountains. It is located in the southwestern corner of the Picos de Europa National Park, and is one of the most popular areas because of its proximity to a famous religious shrine. To get to the lake you have to take a bus from the base of the mountains as the road is quite narrow and steep. Here's a pic of us with the one of the lakes in the background and a large cow (with horns) also admiring the view.
Having a bit of lunch along the lake's shoreline.
Frankie retrieving a shoe she lost in this muddy portion of the trail.
Frankie next to a couple of free range hogs.
A shepherd's hut and dog above the first lake. Almost seemed like a time warp sort of experience back to a medieval agricultural mountain setting except for the solar panel in the upper right of the picture.
A panoramic view of the hut, an old shepherd's wife, some chooks. beautiful green grass, and the lake and mountains for a back drop. Even though Picos de Europa is a national park, clearly there is a long history of man entwined with nature that persists to the present, and presumably will continue to be so for the foreseeable future.
About 18 months ago we took a family trip to Cape Range National Park along Ningaloo Reef in Western Australia. At that time we thought Luca was going to be a GREAT hiker as she demonstrated grit, determination and desire on the walking treks in this arid climate. Hmmm, during our Spanish sojourn she clearly prefers to be a backpack on her two adult sherpas. This has got to change...
Lunch in this cool miniature hobbit forest we encountered during our 5-6 km loop hike.
Cool little shrine in a huge expanse of sub-alpine grasslands with nary another building for at least a km. Why? Your guess as good as mine, but it makes for a cool picture with the second lake in the distant background.
This large grassland served an excellent function to drain Sam and Frankie of their last remaining energy reserves as illustrated in these two pics, they just ran and ran.
Here are some tuckered out and getting cold kids near the end of the hike at the second lake.
We then took the bus down to the town of Covadonga. Covadonga is famous because as the story goes, Pelayo (the Christian general later to be the king of the Kingdom of Asturias) was aided in the first Christian victory over the Muslim moors in 722 AD by a statue of the Virgin May hidden in one of the caves. This military victory kicked off the Christian Reconquest of the Iberian peninsula that ensued over the next 7-8 centuries. Here is a small chapel that was built in the cave where the statue was hidden.
And there is a large church monastery complex that houses a lot of friars, priests and sisters of the cloth in this religious renown location. It is a large complex in a beautiful setting as illustrated through a cave opening with Sam in the foreground in this next pic.
There were lots of candles along this tunnel that connects the town to the church in the cliff.
Here's a pic of a stretch of stream along the town...
