Mountains & Fishing Nets

Ola Bo & Dud,
Another week in Spain goes whizzing by. We were going to move on last Sunday but it was extremely hot and not a good day for travelling - good job we’re so flexible in our arrangements. It was on Monday that we moved on about 100miles to Camping Playa Oyambre, just to the west of Comillas. We’re using several points of reference to find sites but some of the directions have to be followed to be believed and the Spanish clearly do not believe in pointing out where sites are. Emily (our sat nav) has her moments - good job that Hilda has her trusty map book to hand and Howard has a good sense of direction.

The site manager was very welcoming and apologised that they had closed the pool -to make up for this he told us we could park anywhere and take up as much room as we wished, so we did. Our view as you can see from the photographs was spectacular.

Our research had told us that a visit to the Picos de Europa Mountains and in particular a village called Potes was a must. Although Potes was only 33 miles away it took ages to get there - the road twists and turns in all directions and there are sheer drops to the river, a bit of a white knuckle ride. The village is lovely - it reminded us both of Andorra, only without the customs officials! We decided to move on to Fuente De, knowing that there was a view point there. We didn’t expect the view point to be 2,000 feet up on a cable car. As we stood in the car park we could see the cable cars literally disappearing into the rocks. I don’t think that I’ve ever been so high without being in an aircraft - breathtaking scenery - we hope the photographs do the experience justice. Just one downside - I usually use a heavy sun block on my nose, and today for some reason didn’t … Rudolf does not come into it.

Our final outing from this site was to San Vicente de la Barquera, another fishing village, very picturesque and once again with some very expensive fishing boats. The high spot of the day was watching the women repairing the nets on the key side and then the men loading them onto the boats. We were talking to the site manager who told us about his visits to England to promote northern Spain. We explained about the long sea crossing or travel time by road, but, as he rightly pointed out ‘you could fly’ - it’s difficult to try to explain to someone who is passionate about their home why southern Spain attracts Brits and northern Spain would not. The whole experience is completely different and in our opinion, it’s a very well kept secret.

……and so off we go again, this time taking two days of gentle meandering, to get to Santiago de Compostela. This is the end of the pilgrim route, although I’m not actually sure where it begins. We’ve got some exploring to do before my next letter and I may be able to fill you in then.

Have a good week.
Love & Hugs & Kisses
H & H x

P.S. The last photograph in this weeks selection was something of an accident in the way it turned out. We can’t think of a suitable caption for it - can you? Answers by email please.

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