Northern Spain

Oviedo and Santander, Wednesday 11th and Thursday 12th May

Oviedo is in the northern province of Asturias. It was promoted to us as a "very clean city, no crime". The reason being that almost everyone is employed in well paid jobs (local government, professional), unlike some of the southern parts of the country which have very high unemplyment. In fact we haven't yet had any issues with petty crime in spite of the dire warnings that pick pocketing is rife in the big cities. Perhaps that's still in store for later?!

En route to Oviedo we stopped at Cabo Vidio to view the views of the Bay of Biscay (Cantabrian Sea) as we were having a rare few hours of stunning weather. Again it reminded us a bit of the West Coast.

Once arrived in Oviedo we checked out a pre romanesque church, San Julian de los Prados. Incredibly it was built some time during 791-842 AD and has survived more or less intact in spite of the town itself being being conquered/sacked/razed around it a number of times over the centuries. It includes large fresco style decorations also dating from over 1,100 years ago. It is still used as a place of worship to this day.

Later we took a taxi up to a hill top view point a few kilometres out of Oviedo. The view was fantastic - right over the city, out to the sea, and towards the Picos Europa mountains.

Actually we took two taxi rides. The first did not get us to the top of the hill, stopping instead at two small romanesque churches part way up which are apparently a more popular destination. The gulf between Gallego and English was too great, no matter how loudly we spoke, we and the taxi driver could not understand each other!  So we tried again later having done some more groundwork first on the comms. Burned an extra 15 euros or so in the process but all part of the fun!

Asturias is too wet for wine but really good for apples so they make lots of cider, or sidra as it's known in the local language. It was important that we tasted the sidra, and therefore important that it was served properly. Traditionally this means pouring it from a height in order to aerate it, and then drinking it straight away in order to get the best of the flavour. See the picture - it looks quite hard but with practice most of the sidra does actually go into the glass. Still, I think I'd be pouring outside to be on the safe side!

Sidra, being poured by a professional. 

Wednesday was the trek onwards from Oviedo to Santander, again in the rain. We stopped at Covadonga - a place name that one might expect to find in the Australian outback but is in fact a very scenic area in Asturias, as well as a very popular name for girls in this part of Spain. The Covadonga area was the site of the first victory of the Christians over the Moors in 722 at the start of the long reconquest of the Iberian peninsula which had been under Moorish rule for 800 years.

We visited a rather picturesque basilica and "cave chapel" near the town of Canga de Onis, home of an historic roman bridge.

Stopped for lunch at Santilla del Mar, another ancient town. It was still raining but we're getting used to it now. We tried the local speciality called Fabada for lunch. It's a (very) filling stew of haricot beans, fish, chicken, sausage and possibly other things. Despite the promising ingredients it didn't taste like much and had some "unfortunate" textures. I probably won't be trying it again soon.

Made up for it later with a supper of queso cabrales (local smelly blue cheese) and verdelho (local white wine) with crackers from the supermarket while sitting on the balcony of our room at Santander. Very nice view and for once a break in the weather!