asturias

Catedral de Oviedo
Originally uploaded by José Antonio Carretero.

It’s gone now, but when we arrived back here on Monday morning we found that the city had been rather snowier than normal. Last year we had snow laying on the ground for half a day. This time for three days.

Things have returned to normal, it’s raining.

Although it hadn’t felt particularly christmassy (maybe we’re just used to the three month build up you can get in the UK when the shops fill with decorations in October and certain parts of the brainstem are directly targetted by Slade or, worse, Shakey) Liz had expressed a desire to have a few folk round for some nibbles and a glass of wine.

MJ (aka Maria Jesús) had previously suggested going out dancing so we decided to combine the two and show off the new flat too.

Liz also bought me a Spanish scrabble set (which includes tiles for “ch” “rr” “ll” and “ñ”) so we thought we might play that too.

We did a fairly standard table full of cold meats, cheese and dips… we even managed to find some humous. What we didn’t know is that dipping is not spanish, and there were a couple of comments along the lines of “what’s this raw carrot for?” In fact, on the humous pack it said “para dipear” which is a hispanicization of ‘to dip’ leading to a discussion about what dip is in Spanish (meter, we decided).

So we dipped, we snacked, we drank wine and toasted a merry christmas. Then at midnight we all trooped out into the chill (-6C, nothing compared to a frosty Yorkshire I know) and off to Rock Circus.

Rock Circus is basically the hard rock cafe, without the eating. As we went in they were playing AC/DC or some such. Saul excitedly recognised Led Zep, I didn’t… and as such, suffered a dent in my muso reputation. Liz demonstrated a fine solo mosh to the new UK crimble number one (which I didn’t recognise either) and drew a few admiring comments from the chaps next to us.

And therein lies the problem with Rock Circus (or lay, because I don’t know if it’s always like that). The average age of the clientele went down when we went in…

After a drink in there we toddled off to Morgana Le Fey, where they played much less recognisable music (made no difference to me), more europoppy, a younger crowd, more noise…

We made our excuses at around 3 and headed home becuase the following day we were up at 7:30 to go walking…

Never got round to the scrabble.

Julio had been trying to convince us to take it easy on the third day and get to Grandas a bit later. This would have meant missing the only bus back and having to wait until 3pm the following day for a bus. So we were reluctant. As it was, the weather had eased a little, and we decided to get going earlyish to take advantage of the lack of rain. This meant we left Berducedo before the bar had opened. Never mind, we thought, there’s going to be somewhere to get a coffee between here and there.

There wasn’t.


We passed La Mesa, a hamlet with 13 people, all asleep, stopping in the albergue there to see if there was a jar of nescafe or something similar.

No.

Then we climbed steeply up, into real north of England territory, smoother hills, heather and a fierce cold wind. The houses here have slate roofs and are a dark grey that wouldn’t look out of place in Kendal. At the top we could see our destination, Grandas de Salime. Doesn’t look too far, we thought, maybe 5km in a straight line. Then we saw a sign that said 14km. There was a long descent punctuated by plaintive cries for coffee…

It was stunning scenery, the hills are big, 1200m and steep sided, plunging to a man made lake before rising on the other side the same way. The path wandered through pine forest then oak and chestnut, so we had all of the colours of autumn. We descended as far as the dam that forms the lake, it’s a big piece of engineering and when you get up close you’re knackered from the descent, and it seems even more impressive.

We’d spotted a building as we were descending and Julio had said it was a bar (well he actually said to Enrique that we’d be there in 15 minutes, an hour and a half out… not too bad). So we were hoping to finally have our first coffee of the day at about 1pm. It wasn’t just closed, it was abandoned.


Enrique and Encarna decided to stop there for some butties and we said our farewells. We were hoping to make it to the town in time to have lunch before the bus back. Which we did after a strength-sapping 6km up the hill.

Grandas de Salime has 500 inhabitants, it’s the capital of the middle of the back of beyond nowhere. Still, it has a couple of rather nice restaurants, we blagged a table and in contrast to the majority of diners, who were in their Sunday best (although it was Monday), we piled rucksacks and sticks at the side of the table and set to eating. A chickpea stew followed by (merluza for Liz) slices of hand (I think that’s the name for the cut in English butchers, in Spanish codillo, which is little-elbow, basically the forearm). We ate heartily, there is no other word for it, and even had time for coffee before getting on the bus for a 3.5 hour drive back.

On which we were able to actually see some of the hills we’d walked over, unlike the day before.

Liz was awake at 6, she said, listening to the wind. The rest of us got up around 8 and got everything ready. The wind had died down a little bit but Enrique (one half of the Valencian couple, the other being Encarna) said it was still raining. I dithered between umbrella and waterproofs, eventually opting for waterproof trousers and umbrella combo which would avoid overheating. I had a new umbrella for walking, a huge aluminium thing, light but sturdy enough to cope with the wind.

It bucketed down.

We walked to a village called La Mortera, where there was, surprisingly, a bar (you may be getting an idea of what kind of pilgrimage this is by now… it’s a pub crawl… a very loooong pub crawl). It was another bar-tienda (the combination of bar and village shop with all the stock on shelves, they sold everything from soap to slippers, blankets to tins of peaches. The bar owner seemed happy to have so many customers and busied herself making coffee. Enrique suggested a chupito, so we had an orujo that the landlady said was made by one of the local chaps, yes, moonshine. She stamped our credentials and we waited to see if the rain would let up.

No.

So it was off again, this time to Pola de Allande, another bigish town (for very small, Asturian values of big). We arrived at lunchtime and had a big blowout meal. The rain let up a little bit and the sun came out for all of five minutes. While we were inside.



Full, we decided to do the next part. A climb up to Puerto del Palo (puerto means pass in the mountains), which had a reputation of being a bit tough for pilgrims. Julio suggested that we stop at an albergue after a couple of km, but we were thinking of how we were getting home, one bus a day, and we thought we should press on. We stopped in a bar after a few more kilometres. Here in the deeps of Asturias the bars are full of pictures of hunters on the walls, proudly posing above boar corpses. The bar was full of hunters complaining about the weather and worryingly combining drinking with walking around with shotguns. There were a few raised eyebrows when we said where we were going.

We trudged through the rain up the road for a couple of hours, and then took the path as it left the road to head straight up while the road did a few hairpins which would have added another 4km to the route. The path was basically a stream, which made it easy to follow at least.


We got to the top in the murk, fog, twilight, wind… it was very Yorkshire. The light was going and there was another 8km to the albergue. We passed a tiny slate chapel and a hamlet of three housed, pointed in the right direction by an umbrella wielding farmer (if you take a wrong turn doing the camino, local people notice and soon set you straight, although on this day, a couple of people I asked were in the middle of slaughtering pigs, elbow deep in offal, which made pointing a challenge).We couldn’t see very much, so we just walked on. 8km, two hours, a village with a bar in 4km, but would it be open… I put my mp3 player on and listened to Melvyn Bragg on Sparta and the discovery of radiation while we walked, it was hard to chat with the drumming of the rain on the umbrella, yes, it was still raining.


We got to the tiny village of Lago and had a coffee at the bar, 4km left to the albergue. Pitch black now, so head torches out and single file to present a smaller target to the traffic. When we reached the albergue, it was occupied by a solitary walker from Mallorca who had put the heating up to maximum on all the radiators. Handy because we were all pretty damp. There were wet sleeping bags, boots, socks, clothes… Enrique, Julio and I went down to the bar (the voluntary donation was, well, not very voluntary here) to pay and Julio rang his wife (it was their 40th wedding anniversary). Then back up to the sauna that the albergue had become and an attempt to sleep.

We resumed our little stroll in La Espina, an hour and a half by bus from Oviedo, ready for a big weekend of walking. The path ran parallel to the road, through green, Yorkshire looking territory. La Espina is on top of the hills and there are dozens of windmills up here failing to spoil the view. After a while we passed one of the standard Camino signs, but this one had the word ‘bar’ in big letters, so we followed the arrow… rude not to.


The bar was called El Coxu, which is Asturian for the Limper, as the original owner was a guy with a limp. It looked like there was no one about, the bar was dark, but a woman appeared (as if by magic, for all the Mr Benn fans) and served us a morning warmer (anise de guindas, basically unsweetened anise with fruit and sugar added before being kept for a year unopened). Fortified, we carried on to Tineo, the biggest town hereabouts, which isn’t saying much. It’s up on the side of a hill and the buildings have a patina of grime that suggests they’ve endured a fair amount of damp, ugly weather. We took the advice of a couple of people we’d spoken to and ate in La casina (lit: littel house, and it was, literally a little house) where, to Julio’s dismay, they weren’t serving the boiled meats he was hankering after, instead it was a plate of grilled cheek with salad and chips. Cheek? you say, well yes, cheek, mmmm tender face meat.

After dinner the rain started. I’ll not mention it too much more except to note that it didn’t stop until two days later.

After Tineo we contoured the mountain, and were stopped by a hail from a bearded, weatherbeaten chap. He claimed to be the last of the filipinos, which he said, meant that his family fought in the Philipine wars (Spains last overseas sally). He seemed to sit in his shed and wait for pilgrims, then confuse them about what was open, the distances of the stages and so on. He did give us a guide to the camino though. He claimed he sat out all day for the air (his house was a few hundred metres down in the valley) but then went and ruined it all by smoking cigars non stop.

We walked the rest of the afternoon, in the rain, and as it got dark we neared a village where we had been advised by various internet comments, to avoid one of the bars because they apparently didn’t like pilgrims, and charged them a fortune for whatever food they bought. Instead we shed our wet weather gear in Casa Ricardo where we amused the locals. In places like this, deep in the heart of Asturias, a couple of English walkers are classed as exotic. It was early but we knew it was the last place to get any food before the albergue (where there was none) so we had a tortilla, perfect walking food. Then the landlord treated us to a chupito so we left happy, into the dark. No fripperies like streetlights away from these villages.

4km further on we reached Borres, and the albergue. Albergues are free, if you’re a pilgrim, although they rely on donations to keep going. The keys are normally in a box by the door although they can sometimes be in nearby houses or bars. The albergues here are repurposed village schools from what Julio calls ‘The black years’ the years of the republic before Franco (1934-36) he says that in a voice that leaves you in no doubt that he’s not a fan of that republic. The door was locked. There were no keys… I was starting to worry until the door opened and a worried face peered out. A couple from Valencia had arrived much earlier and had sensibly locked the door. We chatted for a while as we sorted out things out, it was a 12 place albergue, so 6 double bunks, but clean, with hot water, showers, toilets and blankets. We turned the lights out and went to sleep to the sound of a storm howling outside.

The forecast was not great but it was pretty accurate. So Liz had her cape and I had my big umbrella ready when we stepped of the train at Grado.

We needed them, because the rain kept coming and going… as soon as the umbrellas were up, the rain would ease off a little, then the minute they were closed, down it came. Still, not a problem really because we were tramping through delightful little villages, marvelling at some of the very neat gardens, the huge kiwi fields, the massive stacks of logs chopped and waiting for winter. We climbed out of Grado to a church on top of a mist covered hill, very atmospheric. The priest invited us into the back so he could stamp our pilgrim certificates. A few people were turning up for the Sunday mass and they pointed us off down the quickest way. They’re building a dual carriageway there, so the camino is a bit more complicated than normal. No matter though, it’s usually well signposted.

22km to Las Salas, where we ate in a seafood themed restaurant, the only place open and serving. Salas is a pretty little town, created in 1270 by Alfonso the wise as part of the trade route to Galicia. The camino follows that route still and crosses bridges and passes fountains which have been in use for 1200 years or more. In Salas Julio complained about his boots, new ones, that he was considering taking a knife to.

He soldiered on, as did we, in the gloom, up a taxing climb in the last light of the day. Then the fog came, and more rain. We watched as the 6pm bus went past us on the other side of the valley, the next one would be at 9. So no rush. We had a coffee in a new hostel and chatted to the guardian, a valencian who had sold his sportswear shop to buy a ruined house and live the Asturian good life. He proudly showed us his renovated horreo (the wooden grain stores that are ubiquitous here), which he had fitted out underneath with a stove and bathroom, as well as a kitchen and bedroom.

We carried on to La Espina and drank shandy in a very local bar (for local people) until the bus arrived. Thirty some kilometres, so not an inconsequential day.

Well, not really horror, but the first snowy walk of the season. Although Liz’s expression was a fleeting one, and subsequently replaced by the more usual smile.

We were supposed to start in León, at 1200m but the guys in the group were a bit worried about the roads up there (and the forecast wind, and snow). So we changed our plans and did a much lower walk. There was still a bit of wind (so much so that at one point I was unable to use my umbrella for a couple of minutes!! No, really, there was a fresh breeze (maybe 40mph gusting to 60) and it broke a few brollys (which needed to be deployed in a shield like manner for the horizontal rain sleet and snow).

We reached the snow, wet and cold… that’s us not the snow (although that was cold and wet too) and didn’t wait to take a photo… just headed down along swollen rivers through autumnal forests.

Back in the village we started from we (the faster walkers, who had the time while waiting for the slower ones) took advantage of the bar and had egg and chips (Pompeyo’s favourite food, and a steal in this place at €2.25).

Then for a complete change of pace later on we went to the luxurious Auditorio Principe Felipe to see the fantastic Kroke… a snippet of which is already on youtube (although the quality is poor so this clip is better).

I am not, by any reasonable definition, a pilgrim (the only exception being those times when the nine-year old me would be adressed by John Wayne in my imagination… so whaddya say, pilgrim?) but nevertheless we started the long trek to Santiago de Compostela on Sunday. It was, as may have been guessed, Julio’s idea.

We’re doing the camino primitivo (the primitive path), also known as the camino interior. It was, apparently, one of the earlier pilgrim routes after one of the early Asturian kings did it (and of course, he set off from his house in Oviedo, much as we did). Liz had met up with Julio a few days earlier to get the official papers and to register as pilgrims (I don’t really mind about that but apparently it’s easier to use the hostels if you have this bit of paper). The hostel in Oviedo stamped the papers and we were official.

It’s somewhere between 300 and 340km to Santiago, depending who you listen to, it’s not hard walking, at least this first stage… mostly flat or on rolling hills. We were lucky with the weather because rain was forecast for most of the day but it took a while to arrive.

Julio had baited his hook by saying that we would be passing a place that did some of the best beans in Asturias, no small claim that. As the first drops of rain began to fall and the temperature plummeted we reached La Florinda, the small restaurant he’d tempted us with. It was full and people who arrived after us were told it’d be an hour’s wait. They all waited which suggests the quality of the food. We just had fabada and pudding… no need for more, and the beans were as good as Julio had promised, soft and buttery.

We enjoyed the change of pace that this walkin gives, strolling along through villages and orchards, saying hello to folk all dressed in sunday best for their ‘all saints day’ traditional cemetary visit, asking farmers if we could scrounge a few apples and going away with a dozen or so. The official papers come in handy because you can get them stamped in bars en route (for which you have to enter the bar, and once you’re there… well it would be rude not to). We’ll be doing the next stage in a few weeks… one down and 13 to go…

Although it’s the end of October, the weather’s still pretty warm (24C today, which is midsummer temperatures…) and we took advantage of it to head up to the Naranco, the hill that overlooks the city. We were going to pick some chestnuts…

The paths were covered in dry crunchy leaves (but no frost) and the spiky chestnut coats (sweet chestnuts are a whole lot spikier than the horsey variety). In short order we had four or five kilos, and Julio was telling us we should be boiling them and then eating them with milk and sugar. Which we will, although some will definitely be roasted.

This has been a bumper year, we scrumped a few apples and figs as we walked enjoying the last of the indian summer. Tomorrow the rain arrives from Galicia, and on Monday, they say it’ll be ten degrees colder, then on Tuesday, snow down to 13oom. Maybe on Wednesday it’ll be spring.

According to Juan Ramón Lucas, Spanish radio’s version of John Humphrey’s (minus the probing questions and harrumphing), the Prince of Asturias Awards are second only to the Nobel prizes. I’m not sure who keeps the list… or by what criteria these prizes are ranked. But never mind that. All week there’s been a buzz around the Campoamor Theatre and the Reconquista hotel because the prizes are being awarded tonight.

If you’ve already followed that link you’ll know that David Attenborough and Norman Foster are amongst the prizewinners… they might need to watch what they say, when Woody Allen said nice things about Oviedo, they made a statue of him…