On Friday we woke to an overcast sky but loaded up the bikes and headed off down highway N-625 through the Beyos gorge. It was amazing. The road was narrow and winding but fairly flat, just a gentle upward climb following the river. And there was surprisingly little traffic – I guess it would be an entirely different story in July and August! It was a really nice ride – our best so far as scenery goes – and the sky continued to get bluer with nice fluffy white clouds. We stopped in Oseja de Sajambre and had a picnic lunch outside the church; fuelling up for the climb into the mountains.
A cute fairly fluffy dog sniffed around us curiously. We noticed an ominous grey cloud coming over the mountains on one side; yet the sky remained blue everywhere else. Then the thunder and lightening started; which felt really strange as it was still sunny where we were standing! We had finished lunch but decided not to head up the road just yet – we’d wait outside a pub and see what the weather did. A group of motorcyclists were doing the same. Suddenly the rain came. Heavily. We dashed inside the pub along with all the motorcyclists. We decided we should have a drink. I was well satiated and caffeinated from lunch (I had a home-made frappacino with lunch) so there really was only one beverage option left - “I’ll have a glass of red wine please”.
The heavy rain lasted about 15 minutes. The weather report on the TV in the pub showed thunderstorms for most of northern spain – for the rest of the day and the next! The sun came out and there was blue sky again. We got on the bikes and headed up the road.
The thunder and lightening continued all around us; it was quite surreal. The little dog started to follow us up the road. It started to rain again and we sheltered under a tree waiting for the worst to pass. The little dog was still with us. A few cars stopped to ask if we were ok – I tried giving the dog to one of the drivers (by this stage it had followed us for over 5km) but the driver wasn’t interested. We started to get a bit cold and the rain seemed to be easing so we got on the bikes again. It started raining really heavily again and we stopped at a barn for shelter.
The little dog was drenched at this point. When the rain stopped again we got on the bikes and continued on. We decided not to head into the mountains (there would be no point if there was no view) and just stayed on the main highway to Riano instead. The little dog disappeared off into the forest and then suddenly a deer ran across the road in front of us with the dog on its heels. We didn’t see the little dog after that.
Interestingly as soon as we crossed over the pass and started going downhill the sky was much clearer. The road even looked dry. It was a good feeling to arrive in Riano. We asked three old men if there was an albergue in town “yes up at the camping” they said, pointing to the top of a hill. Typical. With tired legs we crawled up the switchbacked road to the campground. “No albergue here” was the response from the campsite manager. So our options were to camp in a potential thunderstorm, or go back down the steep hill and look for a hotel in town. We really didn’t want to head back down the hill after all the effort of climbing up so we took the tenting option. The view from the campground was good – Riano sits beside a lake with dramatic limestone massifs all around.
We got the tent up quickly and then settled ourselves under shelter outside the campground restaurant, waiting for the storm. It never came. The sky stayed clear all evening.
In the morning it was overcast and we were glad we got the views we did the night before. We took highway 621 – again a surprisingly quiet road – towards Potes. We arrived at the pass (Puerto de San Gloria) and it was a bit misty. I zipped up my jacket in preparation for the downhill. It was steeper, mistier and much colder than the uphill! Halfway down I had to stop to put on an extra layer. Then we didn’t stop biking (we needed to keep our legs moving to keep warm) until we got to Potes. I asked Julie if she’d like a supermarket lunch in a sheltered spot or a restaurant lunch – the quick response was ‘a hot lunch!’. We had the Menu del Dia at the first restaurant that agreed to serve us lunch at the early (for Spanish) hour of 12:15. Of course it was accompanied by a bottle of red wine. Feeling very warm and cosy inside, and just a little wobbly, we got back on the bikes and continued down the road.
It was another magical gorge; this time following the river downstream. We were still feeling good at the 80km mark (and it was siesta time so nothing was open) so we decided to keep going another 22km to Arenas de Cabrales. We have now done a near complete circuit of Picos de Europa, and tomorrow (weather permitting) we will walk the Ruta del Cares - apparently Spain’s most famous alpine walk.
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