Blogs from Asturias, Spain, Europe - page 7

We have been enjoying the northern Spanish region of Asturias with its cliff lined beaches and brightly coloured fishing villages. I even managed a quick dip in the Atlantic at one of the beaches, Playa De Silencios, reputedly one of Spain's most beautiful beaches. A quick splash then out; freezing! More recently we have been in the mountain area known as the Picos De Europa. So named by American sailors because they were the first peaks to be seen as they approached Europe. Today we have walked part of a trail namedRuta Del Cares. A spectacular hike which was made by workers when mountain streams were diverted to produce hydro electricity. (This is also amazing as they tunnelled through the mountains way back in 1915.) The trail rises 300 metres in the first kilometre (got us ... read more

On Saturday we left Galicia to drive 212 kilometres east into Asturias. It was three hours of beautiful scenery, first mountains and then the coast of the Bay of Biscay. Our campsite is a few kilometres east of the old historic fishing port of Cudillero and the scenery is sensational. We thought it didn´t get any better than Galicia until we walked out of the campsite a few hundred metres down a winding country road and were met by a view that took our breath away; a series of sandy bays and sheer cliffs stretching into the distance and the waters of the Bay of Biscay at their calmest, benign and blue. Our photos do not do it justice because the light wasn´t particularly good and there was quite a damp mist rolling in from the ... read more

Traveling with over 20 people is never a good idea. Our tour bus picked us up early this morning and we got started on the 6-hour bus ride. The first problem that came up was that one girl didn’t make it in time! She got left behind as we began the group trip. According to Spanish law drivers have to stop to rest every few hours, so we made two stops where we enjoyed the picnics packed by our families. We passed from the Madrid area into Castilla-León, the original area of Spain before it added all of the rest of the autonomous communities. In Castilla there were fields of grapes and solar panels equally. Next came Asturias, our destination region. Mountainous and green with rivers, Asturias looks completely different from Madrid, which is suffering from ... read more

We headed north. It was 600ks to Salamanca, but that was nothing to a young man who stupidly tried to drive from Alice Springs to Canberra in one day. And, it was cooler up north. The drive was great – I concentrated really hard on trying to drive smoothly, and, I won. At one point the trip computer told me we would do 1300kms on one tank. Love the Citroen turbodiesel. We made camp at a place called Don Quijote. The bloke checking us in was some kind of ninja – cranky French folk, demanding Dutch and a whole bunch of others rocking up all at once didn't faze him even a little. The campsite was good, but a little far from anything useful, so we drove to the shops. Here we found the worst roundabouts ... read more

After our last ecology class field trip with our professor Montes, we could not wait for our second trip 'straight back to hell'. This time we went to Montes' homeland in the north of Spain to the autonomous community of Asturias for more hiking, horseback riding, culture exposure, and general fun with our crazy professor. Asturias is in the celtic region of Spain and where Ireland or Scotland are considered the homeland for the Irish or Scottish, Asturias is considered the grand-homeland, as in predating the more northern regions when it comes to the culture and so forth. And having never been to Ireland or Scotland, I feel like I can say I have a good idea what it is like after visiting Asturias where the landscape, music, way of dress and even food is all ... read more