Gijon (Picos Europa National Park)

Pyxis
Karen & Richard
Fri 7 Sep 2007 22:44

Friday 7th September – Gijon

43:32.810N 5:40.117W

 

Today we were up and out early.  We picked up our car soon after 9am and drove off, via Gijon’s interesting one way system, and out onto the back roads towards the mountains.  The car was almost new; it was a Fiat Brava 1.9 diesel with only 4,000km on the clock – we were very impressed with its performance given the hard time we gave it climbing the mountains.

 

The weather held, we had glorious sunshine all day, and we had a fantastic time visiting a number of places.

 

We first visited Cangas de Onis which seemed to be the cheese capital – there were shops everywhere dedicated to selling cheese (and the local brew).

 

We then visited a stunning place called Covadonga which has a religious cave and a fabulous basilica high on the hillside – chanting was being broadcast out across the whole valley.  When we went inside the church, we noticed that TV outside broadcast cameras were being set up and we are thinking that they are connected with the big festival day tomorrow.

 

I was the elected driver and when we arrived at the Picos Europa national park, it was a nail-biting drive up through the mountains to the lakes – Lago Enol and Laga de la Ercina.  I unwittingly arrived for the ascent as the coach trips were all ending their visit and met a number of them on my way up.  I didn’t see much scenery on the way up as I was concentrating so hard on the hair pin bends and trying not to scrape the car down the side of a coach; there is not much room to pass and it seems a lot smaller when one side is a cliff face (the coach had that side) and the other is a sheer drop (without any barrier most of the time).  I was getting vertigo in the driving seat and I’m not sure Richard was enjoying the view at that point as he didn’t take many pictures on the way up.  I am so pleased that I was driving as I don’t think I could have sat in the passenger seat.

 

Anyway, once up there, we sat and had lunch by one of the lakes.  The scenery was lovely as you can imagine.  After lunch, we travelled the short distance on up to the second lake – the scenery was even more stunning.

 

From the lakes we drove back down – avoiding sheep and cattle at the side of the road, and trying not to take any notice of the sheer drops – and headed east to re-enter the park near Las Arenas.  There were further stunning views of the highest mountains in the range.  >From Las Arenas we drove through a steep sided gorge to Poncebos.  At Poncebos there is a funicular railway which goes up 400m through a 2km tunnel through the mountain to a little hamlet called Bulnes.  Given the lateness of the hour and the fact it was inside a tunnel rather than up the side of the mountain we left this for another day.

 

We finally returned to Gijon around 8ish.  By the time we had checked the car back in (having travelled over 300km) and got back to the boat it was getting quite late.  The party is just starting outside on the streets as I write this – we can hear singing and a few fireworks, so time to finish the blog and check it out - if we can stay awake that is!