19 September 2022 – Picos de Europa

Miles driven today = 46

Total Miles to date = 1,180

This morning we paid our €9 a head for a ticket for the 11km hold on to your seats rollercoaster bus ride up to the Covadonga lakes.  Once you get to the main bus park there are a choice of 2 clockwise walking routes.  A shorter 3km route, which includes an “interlago” viewpoint, from which you can see both of the lakes simultaneously, or a longer 5.5km trek which takes you along the shoreline of both lakes.  We opted for the shorter, the views were just as spectacular.

Up a series of steps from car park, you reach a visitors centre and then it’s a short diversion to the first viewpoint.  Here you can see what used to be a lake but some clever bloke decided to dig a mine underneath it.  The mine inevitably acted as a plughole and drained the lake.  You can still see the old mine chimney to the right of the farm track which now runs across the old lake floor.

The trail then continues to some more old mine workings, or at least a reconstruction of what they might have looked like back in the day.

Interesting rock formations.

The mushroom fanatic got to work among the cowpats.

The first of the two surviving lakes, Lago La Ercina is at 1,108 metres.  From its shoreline we could see 10 or more vultures circling the crags above.

This cow was either drugged or nailed to the floor.  She wasn’t even the slightest bit bothered at people taking selfies with her.  The whole valley was filled with the sound of cowbells and we wondered whether the different pitches of the bells had any significance i.e. Farmer A’s cows all ring C sharp whereas Farmer B’s are a baritone E flat.

The second lake, Lago Enol is at 1,060 metres.

My daughter has told me off for not including enough pictures of us in this blog so here’s a terrible example of why we don’t generally do selfies.

I’m not even sure if I was facing in the right direction but that definitely looks like the sea over there.

We got back to the van and were ready to head off a little after 2.  We are vaguely heading in the direction of Leon but wanted to see more of the Picos first so we headed down to the town of Cangas de Onis in order to get enough signal on our phones to plan a route. Whilst there we drove past the pointed high arch of the Puento Romano.

Then we picked up the N625, heading south along the vertiginously steep sided valley of the Sella River. 

For the next 40 odd miles it seemed that we didn’t travel 50 yards without a hairpin bend and as we climbed the rock faces got steeper, the bends sharper and the road narrower.  We topped out at something like 1,300 metres.

With a couple of quick photo stops and pulling over to let impatient locals overtake, it took me more than 2 hours to complete the journey, so an average of probably a little more than 20mph.

After a long awaited downhill section we rolled into Riano, although we are still at more than 1,100 metres here.  Riano is actually a new village, built in the 1980s.  The original Riano and 6 of its neighbouring villages disappeared underwater when the valley was flooded for a hydroelectric project.   

However the water level is currently so low that the skeletons of drowned woodlands have reappeared and I reckon some of the older locals might be able to pop down to their previous residences for a reminiscent visit if the level gets much lower.

We’ve decided to splash out on the only local campsite tonight.  We could have stayed in a carpark in the town for nowt but we needed to top up with water so we have treated ourselves.  It’s €22 a night without electric, which is more than we have spent in total for the last 4 nights.  Big spenders eh!

We took a stroll up the hill just before sunset to take in the views over the lake and to the mountains beyond.

There is a massive swing up there where all the cool kids hang out… Hang on, it’s my turn!

20 September 2022 - Leon