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From the Picos to the SeaBy Beth Ede
The taxi ride from Bilbao airport is very scenic, and a good introduction to Green Spain, a collective – and very appropriate – name for the regions along Spain's north coast. Watching the rolling green hills and rugged coastline fly past through the window, I remembered well the day I arrived in Spain three years before, and how surprised I had been by the greenness of it all – not at all the popular British view of Spain. The starting point of the walk is a village called Arenas de Cabrales, a real metropolis compared to the other villages and hamlets in which you stay along the route, though in reality just a small market town. Just a couple of minutes' drive away is the mouth of the Cares Gorge, the so-called Divine Gorge. And divine it certainly is. Our path followed a remarkably engineered water channel carved out of the side of the gorge. We rose steadily at first, until the river was just a thin turquoise snake below us. Looking ahead, we saw rugged limestone peaks, outlined against the clear blue skies, and above the path were numerous small caves in which shepherds used to leave their cheeses (wrapped tightly in leaves) to mature. Given that the only way through the gorge is on foot, we were somewhat surprised a little later to round the corner and see a young chap running a 'bar' at the side of the path. Thirsty, we asked for a couple of bottles of water, only for him to lean over the water channel and hitch up a crate of ice-cold bottles of beer, lemonade and mineral water from out of the water, his makeshift fridge! From having been so high up above the water, the final leg of the path descends steadily so that by the end of the gorge you are within just a couple of metres of the water. After another drink in a small cafe in Cain, we headed back along the gorge, marvelling at the fact that at some point shepherds had managed to scramble up the steep slopes of the other side of the gorge to build seemingly inaccessible small stone huts.
The second day's walk, though the most challenging of the route, is extremely rewarding – the route leads up through high pastures, where eagles circle overhead. I have to admit to being quite tired by the time we arrived at the Tahona de Besnes, so we appreciated the friendly welcome all the more, and soon felt revived after tapas of the strong but tasty local goats cheese, Cabrales. Originally a bakery, the Tahona retains many original feature: wooden beams, exposed stonework, and the old waterwheel. Although I liked the Tahona very much, my favourite of all the hotels on the walk was our next stop, the Casona d'Alevia. Gregorio (an economist) and Mari Lupe (a teacher) gave up their old life in Madrid and moved to Asturias when they inherited the house. They took almost three years to renovate and convert it, but their hard work has paid off. The attention to detail is amazing, from the attractive wooden furniture to the old sepia photographs of the village that decorate the shelves in the small library. After a nice hot shower, we headed down to the dining room, originally the part of the house in which the family's pigs and cows were kept. I am vegetarian and have grown used to getting a somewhat raw deal in Spanish restaurants, but the wild mushrooms crêpes were delicious (my companions made equally appreciative noises about the rabbit fillet).
The festivities continued well into the early hours of the morning, but luckily, as the walk to Villanueva is not too long, we could afford a lie in the following morning. When we made it down to the dining room, a wonderful array of pastries, breads and tortas were waiting for us. The breakfasts here were ranked among the top ten in Spain in a 1998 survey by El Pais, the national newspaper, and we could certainly see why. Setting off from Alevia, we followed a twisting farm track lined with wild blackberries up the mountainside, ascending for a good hour until the ground began to level out and the sea appeared ahead of us, our first sighting. From there onwards it was downhill all the way, to the hamlet of Villanueva which we could see in the distance, and the welcoming Casona de Villanueva, again tastefully converted from a traditional village house. The following day, Nuria took us by car to the starting point of the walk. After the quite short walk the day before, we were feeling energetic enough to start with a detour to the source of the River Puron. Though it adds another hour onto the walk, I would recommend making the effort to visit the source - I was expecting a tiny trickle from out of the rocks, but in fact the river emerges fully fledged, about ten metres wide.
The lounge is spacious and furnished with inviting sofas – just what you need at the end of a long day's walk. We needed no encouragement from Lucas to get a celebratory drink from the bar and sink into one of the armchairs. Dinner was a wonderful affair – I had filo parcels filled with goat's cheese and vegetables, while my companions, who had taken some time to decide between the many dishes on offer, enjoyed merluza a la plancha (hake baked with garlic) – accompanied by a lovely red. Asturias may not produce its own wine, but arguably it doesn't need to with La Rioja so close. Our last day was spent exploring nearby Llanes, a charming little port with a basilica and some interesting shops. To see what we had achieved, we walked along the cliff-top path and sat on a wall looking back across to the Picos. A fantastic end to a fantastic walk.
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Despite having spent five (fondly remembered) months in Oviedo as a student,
I had never really had the chance to explore the beautiful Picos de Europa,
so I was very keen to return to 
After such a breathtaking first day's walk, it was hard to imagine that
the following walks would be as good, but I certainly wasn't disappointed,
and it is probably the variety of the walking and the scenery that I liked
the most about the holiday. (And the accommodation, which I'll come to
in due course.)
Having finished dinner, we headed outside to investigate the village
fiesta, the source of some quite loud music, and were surprised
at how many people had materialised onto the central square from such
a seemingly small village. The local drink, cider, was flowing, quite
literally
– to get a little air into it, you are supposed to hold the
bottle high above your head and pour it into a glass held at mid-thigh
height (a technique that, I was assured by my friends in Oviedo, takes
hours of practice in the bath). Once poured, you must drink the cider
straight away, preferably in one gulp, saving a little bit to swill round
the glass to 'clean' it before emptying the dregs onto the floor and passing
the glass to your friend
– quite a sociable affair, and something you
definitely have to try!
Returning to the drop-off point, we walked through a village and climbed
up through woodland to the top of a broad, grassy ridge, which we followed
for quite some time, soaking up the views
– to our left we could see the
mountains through which we had walked earlier in the week, and on our
right was the Atlantic. We were reluctant to leave the ridge, but eventually
we started to descend and followed grassy tracks to la Posada de Babel,
the highest quality of the hotels on the route, run by the charming Lucas
Cajiao.