Once our sore heads had subsided after the expedition dinner, we headed west for the spiky white mountains that could be seen from high points around Matienzo. The whiteness should probably have given the game away, but we’d been assured by expedition members that the snow in the Picos wasn’t a problem, and one could go walking in the mountains. Hurrah.
Oxford university cavers have been exploring caves in the Picos for years, with some of their expeditions described in ‘Beneath the Mountains’ (the full book is online here). In the early 80s they were the first Brits to push a cave to over 1000m deep, and hiking up to this cave (“Xitu”) entrance seemed like as good a walk as the next. OUCC expeditions happen in high summer and we’d heard about how hot people got on the walk, especially when lugging rucksacks full of rope. Much cooler in early April with only daysacks we thought…
Well yes, it was much cooler, to the extent that there were several inches of snow on the ground at the road-head, and having left our snowshoes behind in Norway, we clearly weren’t going to get anywhere near Xitu (a three hour walk from the carpark). Bum. Really pretty up there too.
So we turned around, drove to the other end of the Picos via a very scenic gorge drive, and went up a funicular for grand views of more snowy mountains.
The next day we actually managed to walk our intended route; up the Cares Gorge. This was walk in outstanding scenery, with excitingly vertical drops down to the river, and snowy peaks high above. The path looked like it had been built to maintain an aqueduct, and is cut into the side of the limestone gorge (into which, incidentally, the water from Xitu resurges). We were never likely to have the place to ourselves, as it’s one of the most popular walks in Spain, but the numbers didn’t detract from the day.
After leaving the Picos we continued west, taking a detour north, in fact as far north as you can go in Spain. Punta de Estaca de Bares was rather quieter than the most northerly points of both New Zealand (post here) and Norway (post here) and considerably easier to get to. It wasn’t all that impressive, but the next peninsular west was rather more so, as were the 600m high sea cliffs nearby. Some great views of the wild Atlantic shore.
So, with that particular song playing in our heads, we drove inland to the city and did the tourist thang. One of the cathedral towers is currently being renovated and is covered in scaffolding. If you happen to have any Spanish 1, 2 or 5 Euro cent coins on you, check out what the cathedral is supposed to look like. Pretty decent inside though. The San Martiño Pinario monastery is also well worth a visit.
Having ticked off some cultural stuff, it was time to satisfy our bellies. We ate out for a change (a packed lunch is the norm), at a restaurant with a “market menu” – two courses for €12. As there were two starters and two mains (and whilst I’d downloaded Spanish for offline use, I hadn’t done the same for Galician…) we ordered one of each, each, and were pleased with the outcome; garlic soup / poached egg in a creamy sauce for starters, and seafood rice / some sort of poultry (maybe pheasant?) for the mains. Yum.
We also needed to buy some cheese. Especially so in Santiago, where the local cheese looks like a female breast and has a funny story to go with it. The tale goes that some religious types got upset by a statue of a busty lady on the cathedral door, but after the offending breasts were shrunk down to more modest proportions, other people became annoyed in turn because the artist’s work had been spoilt, and so they started making boob-cheese. Ok, it’s actually called “tetilla”, but I prefer our name for it 😀
Different Days 