Santa Christina to Cudilliero….Heading for the Atlantic Coast

France and Spain 2015........a roadtrip with a boat cruise

September 24th

…..a bit of a late start as breakfast was not served until 9AM….very nice lots of different eats to stock up on… like we need those additional calories…a few pics of the dining room where we also had dinner last night:

From here we charted a course to our first stop of the day, Playa de Cathedrales, which is outside of Ribadeo, on the Atlantic Coast and in the province of Asturia……about a 2 hour drive.

It started of foggy but as we reached the coast it cleared up and we had pretty nice views of the rather cool rock formations which run along this coast. Playa de Cathedrales is one of many beaches in this area, which is mostly made-up large serrated rock formations with indentations where there are sandy or pebbly beaches.

There were several picturesque towns/villages along the way as we took a route following the coastline, Puerto de Vega (2nd pic below) being one of those:

We were going to have lunch in Ribadeoa a pretty nice coastal town but were starting to run late so just bought picnic stuff and ate in the harbor at Luarca, possessing a stunning setting…and a somewhat Mediterranean feeling.

Then what would have been a 45 minute drive stretched way longer as we took the local highway which resulted in a lot of driving for a small amount of forward progress. The autopiste parallels the shoreline but traverses the hills and deep/long valleys either via tunnels ( there are probably more tunnels along this coast than in all of Canada) and massive Viaducts as they are called here . It would have been more efficient to go on the autopiste, deke down to the ocean and back down rather than what we did ….oh well !! In any event we got to Castaneras from which a short drive on broken pavement brought us to Playa del Silencio:

and a view of the rough coastline stretching northwards ……Cabo Vidio:

After a somewhat strange drive through a farmer’s field he was there cutting hay (official road???) we arrived in Cudilliero ….and back to reality lodging wise ….1 * hotel but clean, good beds, shower and the price was right > 40 Euros. Very pretty setting but a slog up and down the hill:

Then time for dinner… actually got to eat earlier in a Sidereria which has different eating hours…the differences between, a restaurant, bar, cafe etc. are a little hard to follow but somehow we managed to get fed…haha. A German party was digging into what they call European lobster and what we called simply expensive > 75 Euros a kilo and they had two monsters on the table. In any event we had more modest fare and our first experience with cider …not the sweetish Canadian version but dry, cloudy and astringent with alcohol content of around 6% >>> a bit of an acquired taste. It was a good dinner but a tad expensive.

Another nice day and evening …..