Peelies travels

We managed to see Naranjo de Bulnes with its 550m vertical wall (2,519m) from a valley viewpoint near Las Arenas de Cabrales. It’s worth looking for. Once you are into the higher mountains it of course disappears. It’s a bit like Everest which is (apparently) well hidden by Lhotse and Nuptse. We also drove up the valley side to the north of Arenas de Cabrales , hoping to see it from a well known viewpoint but it was too cloudy  We did have a customary wander around the hamlet of  Asiegu and found a cheese maker and the evidence of a fence-maker cum artist. We have got a little braver with our cheese choices and confidentiality pulled the curtain open at a very small artisan cheeser. The lady was over in the high risk area (well she had the white boots and hairnet that I’m familiar with) and indicated that she’d be a couple of minutes. I was happy to observe the process which was simple. She moved the stirring paddle around in the milk for a while, measured the temperature and...

We move to the coast. We are spoilt for choice. It’s a proper Atlantic coastline with lots of tide swept beaches. We go to Ribadesella where the campsite is a 10min walk from the start of the promenade and about 35mins from the old town. It’s beautiful with superb detached houses just behind the prom. There are no fast food outlets or kids amusement parks or crazy golf. Just a couple of tasteful beach-shack type café / bars and a lot of beach.   The sea is enticing and we get organised to go for a dip. The waves are bigger and stronger than they look and a couple knock us both over. Apparently they can pull your bikini bottoms down as you get rolled in the surf. On the prom. there are showers and so we can wash off the salt and get sorted. I expect it would be very busy here in July/August but in October it’s quiet. In the old town we wander and watch people. We try to judge just when it’s time for the evening meal  but it’s tricky. We opt for a beer instead and eventually get...

I t’s so strange in Spain. You can’t do anything without an ID card and if you don’t have one of those, then you need to provide a passport. Hence when arriving at a campsite, you need a method of payment, two passports and in most cases, your ACSI card. The card facilitates a discount during shoulder season (the bits between low and high season) and we used it throughout the spring trip and at most sites here. Even though it confirms my name and address, the ACSI card isn’t sufficient proof of ID. Apparently the passport details are provided to the Police. What a dreary job that must be, processing campers’ credentials. Following the gorge walk, we had returned to the Picos de Europa campsite for an overnight stay. It's the last day of September and they are close to the end of the season. The cost was €23 for the two of us. There, the next morning, we chatted to a couple in an old VW Caravelle and mentioned going to “the lakes”. They told us that access was only on a bus, from va...

The disappointment of learning that the full length of this gorge walk isn’t possible, was tempered when we realised there was time to do the first 3.5km of it and do it in the late afternoon, after the day of driving slowly to Espinama and back. The Americans that we’d met the previous day had turned up that evening in Sotres for a look around. They told us that the first part of the walk was ‘allowed’ but also that people were ignoring the “don’t go any further barriers”. Maybe they were doing all 12 km to Cain. We parked in a suitable place for the start of the walk, which would have been ideal for the Bulnes one too. It was late afternoon and there were spaces by then. The Cares river has carved the most amazing knife-slash cleft in the mountains and the walk is precipitous along the northern side, with the path mainly running high above the river, yet far below the towering cliffs. The result is that there’s an enormous amount of scree of all shapes and sizes and you really need t...

Sotres isn’t quite at the end of the tarmac as there’s a little more, to Tresviso, that we didn’t drive. We got an elevated spot on the camper van grassy area and the view of the mountains was super. The village caters for walkers and climbers and possibly suffers the camper vans without much choice. Any facilities that used to be provided are not now, however we had an empty loo (always a good ploy) and plenty of drinking water (20 litres plus various bottles). We had a wander around.  It’s always good to see a Land Rover - this is a Santana (leaf sprung), built under licence. We  checked that there’s bread tomorrow (from 9am) and a found couple of bars from which we would choose one for a drink. We laughed when we saw a wind sock in what looked like the garden behind the little hotel & bar. We chose this one as, peering into the other, all we could see was a local mountain-wizened man looking out at us. I felt that striking up any kind of conversation would be difficult ...