Santillana Del Mar to Gijon
Trip Start
May 14, 2008
1
4
14
Trip End
May 30, 2008
Gijón,
Asturias,
Spain
Monday, May 19, 2008
We had planned on going to the Caves of Altimira, where you can see prehistoric cave paintings, but they´re closed on Mondays
A church on the drive to Comillos
! Figures. So, instead, we followed the coast road, exploring little villages and hamlets along the way. We drove through the rain to Llanes (pronounced Janice) and stopped at Playa de Toro to stretch our legs. Despite the rain, and despite Jim´s complaints, we walked along a path to a point overlooking the north coast. The beach looked like it had rocks growing from the sand in all sorts of interesting shapes. Some formed into caves, and the water was a beautiful green/blue. Jim headed back to the car while I took some pictures. As I joined him, there were two policemen interrogating a fisherman who was putting his catch into the trunk of his car. It looked like he had caught some type of swordfish - very cool-looking. Other than the fisherman and policemen, we didn´t see a soul there. We drove through Llanes and saw the art that this town is famous for - an artist has painted boxes in all colours at the end of a wharf. From there we carried on to a little town called.....drum roll please.....POO! Yes, really! It´s so small that if you blink, it´s gone. I managed to get a picture with the name of the town on it, ´cuz I know you won´t believe me...We ended up driving about 200 km today. Lunch was at another beautiful seaside town called Ribadesella. We ate at a pizzeria and conversed in Spanish - even Jim is getting the hang of it, despite thinking he can add an 'o' to the end of any word and make it Spanish
Playa de Toro in Llanes
! After lunch we drove to Playa de Santa Maria. It´s a beautiful, long beach and it was devoid of people. Mind you, it was siesta time (1:00) at this point so shutters covered pretty much all the apartment windows. It was like the Spaniards knew the LeQuesne´s were in town so they all went into hiding! There were lots of cars everywhere, but no people. It makes travelling easy though - no crowds, easy to find parking.After our beach stop, we decided to bypass the coast road and take the freeway to Cudillero, which we had read has the nicest beaches in northern Spain. Along the way, we observed that Spain has an exceptional transportation system - there are lots of tunnels, huge bridges (most painted my favourite colour of royal blue), and excellent signage. In Grado, we pulled into a gas station to confirm that we were going the right way. I approached two men who didn´t speak a word of English, but we managed to have a conversation and they gave me directions, which we followed, and voila, success! It felt so good to be able to communicate my needs and get help in another language. Sometimes it feels like we´re walking around in a fog, with everybody chattering away - quickly - and not having a clue what they´re saying.
When we arrived in Cudillero, we drove to Playa de Aguilar - another beautiful, secluded, white sand beach. I resisted and didn´t collect any. There were only about 10 people there, so we bought an ice cream cone and relaxed on the patio in the sunshine. Jim took a picture of the hole in the floor in the men´s washroom where you were meant to squat and do your business, but there was no toilet paper! Interesting dilemma...
How would you like to live here?
At about 5:30 we headed to Gijon, where we were overnighting. Gijon is a big city - population 275,000ish - so getting around was a bit tricky. We followed the signs to Les Playas (the beaches) and crossed a bridge, and then decided to ask two ladies who were walking nearby to help us. One spoke a bit of English, so she called her husband over who spoke it better. The next thing we knew, he and his friend said "We´ll come with you!". They hopped in the back seat of the car and proceeded to direct us to our hotel, and seemed very happy to do so! We offered to drive them back, but they said they were out for their daily walk so it was okay. What a nice welcome to Gijon!
We settled into our hotel - the nicest one yet - and at 8:30 we headed over to the Internet Cafe. As Jim was trying to map our hotel in Leon on Mapquest, I heard a familiar voice and looked up to see Nancy, Sandi & Lynne! They were supposed to be in San Sebastian for another night, meeting us in Leon tomorrow, so the chance of bumping into them here in Gijon, in an Internet Cafe, was a total fluke! We had a quick catch-up visit, updated our travel blogs, checked our e-mail and said our goodbyes. Jim and I had our latest dinner yet - 10:20 pm! We had "doner kebaps", which were delicious. Jim struck up a conversation with the cook, who is from Bangladesh, while I dashed across the street to take a picture of the skyline at dusk. Adios!
