Villa Miramar Majorca

Twas a rough old night as we free camped (including a wonderful fish barbecue) on Oyambre beach, and it soon became apparent that our surf boards were non too happy perched a-top the van roof; this to the extent that they attempted to become detached at around 5am ...

... Jews, the Inquisitioin, etc. Hee, hee. Still trying to be funny here. But enough.

It is a beautiful spot here. The air is cool and smells of the woods. We've both commented how early it feels here in the mornings. By that I mean that at 8am it feels dark and early--like 6am back home. Not much moves until 9am (which feels like 7)! Enjoy the photos from Covadonga. Next stop, Ribadeo on the coast.

Left Hector's at 10 am. I was very tired. We hit the road right after getting bread and fruit for breakfast. We ate breakfast and I decided to get some shut-eye after downloading all of the pictures from the day before. Conrad said he would wake me if he saw anything cool. I thought I was just about falling asleep when he woke me up for a "scenic detour". Wow, was all I could ...

We are staying in a little village called Avin. We visited Cangas de Onis which is a pretty little town with an ancient bridge. We went to the seaside at Llanes and went on a cliff top walk.

Next day we went to Desfiladero de Cares. The pathway was made at the beginning of the 20th centuary by the workmen who blasted out a course for a canal to supply water for hydro-electicity for the area. The walk is from Poncedos to Cain and winds it way ...

We awoke to the sounds the ocean across the street. A stroll revealled the Picos de Europe directly behind us. We toured the lovely old city, took some naps, played in another discovered playground, and set off again around ...

We meet Julia and Geoffrey at Asturias Airport but have a little more difficulty finding our Hertz rental car. It was worth searching as it turns out to be a brand new BMW. We climb in gingerly as its just begun to rain because it seems a crime to put our feet on the brand new cream carpet.

The rain or at least, cloud, stays with us for the whole week which means few chances at even seeing the mountains let along walking in them. A few ...

... warm.  But we headed down the street to a pharmacy for Kevin but I stopped off for an extra battery for the camera (probably a good idea, even if I didn't forget the other in the car).  Kevin was able to find benedryl, but nothing non-drowsy.  Hopefully he'll (and therefore I'll) sleep better tonight.  We ended our trip to Bilbao by having lunch in the food court of the mall we parked our car under.  It had four food choices: McDonald's, Burger King, A sandwich place ...

... in that bar combined. It proved to be a silly night with a silly walk back to the hotel. Who knew that in such a small town we could actually end up having such a good time. That's how WashU in Spain rolls I guess. The next day we woke up early and enjoy probably the best breakfast we had in Spain...granted we were at a pretty fancy hotel. We went out that day and made a few stops, one included a village practically in the middle of nowhere with a church commemorating some guy ...

... the pass at 1280m (4,200ft), then drove back down again. The view going the other way was equally spectacular. We stopped on the way down at a weir where there was a salmon ladder. We did not see any, but did see loads of fishermen at various points, so there were some there somewhere. Needless to say as we came to the foothills it became cloudy again. We had a couple of mornings just wandering around Ribadesella itself ...

... we were not allowed in. Then we went to a place where we were supposed to ride a lift up the mountains, but the lift was closed due to snow. So the only thing we could do was walk around a town during siesta. Which means nearly everything is closed. They did give us lunch. I ended up finding a place called Asian Bizarre that ...