Blogs from Cabrales, Asturias, Spain, Europe

Friday, on the hike down from Picas Urriellu, Kathy fell and hurt her knee. It happened to be on the thin trail around the basin. She was about 10 yds in from of me when she fell and began to roll toward the edge. My heart skipped a beat...I'm tellin' ya. It scare the @#$t out of me. I yelled at her not to move until I got a picture but she never listens to me so you will have to imagine the scene. It turned out okay but she struggled down the rest of the hike which was about 4 1/2 miles (nothing to sneeze at with a busted knee). Fortunately, it rained on Saturday so we just walked around the hills of Sotres, slept, and had dinner. On Sunday morning we took the shuttle ... read more

Monday we arrived in Las Arenas de Cabrales which is the gateway to the Picos de Europe National Park from the north. This is a small village of about 350 population on the Rio Cares. We began our hike as always looking for the beginning. The directions provided were good but the signage did not match the directions. After half an hour at the tourist info center we were off for our adventure. And what an adventure. First we climbed 650 m. That's about 1950 ft or for those that don't know...that's a long way up. The views were spectacular. As the instructions said, "just start up any path. They all go to the same place." Now this might sound like strange instructions to most and it did to us too. But as it turns out ... read more

25th March An awful night as Cathy did indeed get worse with an upset tummy ..so as she doesn’t feel up to travelling we’ll be staying another night. Thankfully I’m still alright so far, so I’ll do some chores & dodge the rain showers. I had lunch in the cafe bar which Google translate said was a chicken skewer but it turned out to be a thin breaded chicken slice in nice local bread with salad...& cubed potato ‘chips’...filled a hole. Did all the washing in the afternoon which was expensive (but the machines were huge, almost industrial) & whilst loading & unloading ‘chatted’ to a German couple who have been touring since Christmas- I think that they had saved all their washing for this site. Discovered that my German is on a par with my ... read more