Advertisement
Published: December 15th 2013
Long in the making - this weekend was inspired by tales of fabulous food, scenery, and weather (in the summer) by great friends Nick and Ceci - we were not disappointed!
The usual early start commensurate with cheap flights (£40 return!) saw us meeting Lynny and Graham (travelling companions through Argentina in 2006) on a cold and dreary Friday at Stanstead. A trouble free flight, you get free speedy boarding with kids (and seat allocation stops the usual bun fight), saw us arriving in good time to make a full day of it in Asturias.
Processing at the little airport was fairly straightforward - Heidi managed to get herself separated from the rest of us by running thorough automatic doors - which then promptly closed behind her and caused much laughter in the immigration queue - especially when she tried to run back through and hit her head on the glass! Once that drama was over, we were into the hire cars and on the road to our first gastronomic destination.
We had a great set of guide notes based on a brief of wanting to see, eat and drink as much as possible
in 3 days - not sure that is responsible parenting but H&H seemed to enjoy themselves.
First stop was Lastres - where we knew of a little restaurant famed for its paella. G&L expertly navigated the little convoy and we found the place with only one U-turn.
The weather was not conducive to sitting out on the terrace - but made the whole place a bit more atmospheric - as the waves were really rolling in. The back drop of the little town perched upon the cliff while we were warm inside made for a perfect start to the weekend.
It was Sally's birthday so we started with a bottle of champagne - quite surreal considering we'd woken up in dreary England! The food was delicious - the fishiest Paella we'd ever eaten - but very tasty and probably how it is supposed to be. A quick walk along the harbour wall (in the rain) woke us up for the short drive to Oviedo - our home for the next two nights.
We found a really unique hotel come spaceship and whilst tempting to stay in the room
and play with the disco lights and hiding places we were straight out into the town!
From limited experience we were expecting things to start a little late in town so decided on a few drinks and tapas before eating supper. This is where the famous Asturian tradition of Sidra “pouring and drinking” revealed itself – not mentioned in our notes specifically so a great surprise.
The Sidra is a bit like the old scrumpy of the West country and is poured from a bottle above the head into a pint glass held at the waist. A little bit is wasted but the spectacle makes up for that! The Sidra is then drunk in one go so as to enjoy the taste created by aerating the drink through the ridiculous (looking) pouring ceremony. Anyway, we soon got used to it and would stare intently at the barman each time he came to refill our glasses!
Some tasty tapas and a minor incident whereby Graham tipped Heidi’s sweets over and in her haste to stop them falling, fell off her chair – the time had passed sufficiently for restaurants to open for
some more culinary treats.
We drank a delicious bottle of Rioca and ate amongst other things Octopus, Calamari, Sausage, Prawns, and plenty more which I can’t remember – all washed down with a bottle of you guessed it – Sidra!
Walking back to the hotel we noticed a manicured date in the flower beds to commemorate Sally’s birthday and a happy birthday message from the hotel waiting for her in our room – clever service.
We packed a lot in on day one it was going to be hard to top! However…… after a great breakfast (did I mention everything here is such good value too – b’fast for 4 adults in the hotel 12 Euros each – in a café outside – 12 Euros for all of us) – we had plenty to do.
A walk out of town to an old monument rewarded us with amazing views over Oviedo and beyond to the mountains – covered in snow and eerily moving in and out of the clouds… followed by a delicious lunch of tapas and pinchos (little sandwiches) saw us get into the hire cars and head to
the home of Sidra!
Nava has a Sidra museum where you get to press your own apples, play some bagpipes and an obscure game where you throw discs at a frog – and then most importantly we got to pour our own Sidra - to varying degrees of success. A brilliant day and then back into town to find another restaurant for escalopines al cabrales!
The last day we wandered the old town and its eclectic market and then having found the most expensive things in Spain (disposable nappies) we headed off into the mountains in search of Jabali – wild Boar Stew.
Again we were not disappointed – delicious food – amazing scenery – almost free it was that good value!!!
A seamless journey back to the airport and flight home rounded off an absolutely brilliant 3 days away! Would whole heartedly recommend Asturias as a destination – and we’ll be planning a trip back in the summer – hopefully to coincide with the Sidra festival!!!!!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.07s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 12; qc: 37; dbt: 0.0421s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Graham
non-member comment
Quality blog guys!
Was a joy spending time with you all in beautiful Asturias! x