Where's Bertie? He's in a car park, in a stunning coastal position, at Pechón (exact location: 43.39268, -4.48496)
Weather: Glorious sunshine, with just one small cloud that blocked the sun for a couple of minutes.
Going for a run this morning may seem like a contrary thing to have done, given what I said yesterday about my knee, but past experience told me that neither exercise nor rest would remarkably alter its state. Moreover, the cure last time came the morning after I'd jumped over a gate and landed heavily on that leg, so I thought maybe a run would help. I limped up the road by way of a poor excuse for a warm up, then burst into a jog - whereupon all pain stopped. It stayed stopped for quite a while after I'd finished too. Meanwhile, I enjoyed the golden glow on the snowy Picos de Europa mountains as the sun made it over the hills to the east. It was a bit parky, mind, with the highest temperature I saw on a thermometer whilst out being 4 degrees, and the lowest 2 degrees.
Mick would have been happy to stay put in San Vicente for another night, but I wasn't enamoured either with the slope of the parking nor the noise of the night-time revellers going home in the early hours of the morning, so after breakfast we got ready to move.
Before we left, however, we took one last stroll, as today was market day (had it not been so, we could have parked in the actual car park, rather than in the roadside parking, and not been on a slant). Most of the stalls held no interest for us, the exception being the cheesemonger. Having accepted that it's unlikely that we are going to venture far into the Picos de Europa area, and having had the local cheeses recommended to us (thank you Humprey!), we were pleased to see that this stall had a good selection, with about half a dozen blues, including two village names we recognised. We went for the Tresviso and very much hoped we were going to like it as the easiest thing to do was to accept the piece that was already cut, which was bigger than we would have chosen had our language skills not been so pathetic*. We ate some for lunch and are pleased to report that we liked it very much. I'm now wishing we had bought some of another type too. I must learn my numbers and how to ask for pieces of something, in case we come across the same stall at another local market.
Tresviso cheese - very blue, aged and firm, but not overpowering in flavour.
Pointing Bertie westwards once more, we journeyed all of 8km to our next stopping point - a supermarket. Their car park was not inspiring, and was not in the sun, but we paused there for elevenses: a) to try to use their wifi (failed - it wasn't working properly); and b) to decide where to go next. I outlined the two choices to Mick, we made a decision, then I noticed a nearby (2km, as the crow flies) parking area that had good reviews, so we came here for a night instead.
What a spot! It's lovely here. Here's a collage of the view, the first taken just after we had ventured down to the beach and walked across to (and over) the rocky outcrop, the second taken as we got back from this afternoon's walk, just at high tide:
Do you see the thing in the sea on the left side of the beach in the 'low tide' shot? That's one of three tractors being operated by a single chap down there, harvesting seaweed (one tractor had the rake to get the seaweed out of the sea, another was used to pick up the resulting pile of weed, then there was the one with a trailer, into which it was deposited). We watched his work for quite some time and were surprised at quite how far into the surf he took his machine. Here's a zoom shot:
The tide, incidentally, came in quickly to cover the beach. There was still a large expanse of sand when we came back from the rocky outcrop, but only about twenty minutes later we would have got our feet wet. In fact, Mick nearly did, but that was just one of those sneaky waves. These two snaps were taken seconds apart:
Having downloaded a walking route from wikiloc.com, after lunch a pleasant hour and a half was spent visiting a couple of other beaches and a viewpoint. The latter didn't give much of a view, because of trees.
Back at Bertie, we turned him around to put his windscreen away from the magnificent view. That not only gave us the solar gain from the last of the afternoon sun, but also put us level (taking advantage of Bertie's inbuilt slope from back to front). If we stay here again tomorrow, we'll be turning back around in the morning, no doubt to the amusement of the occupants of the other van that came and joined us late this afternoon (a rare breed - they took the space right at the opposite corner of the car park!)
(*We are working on our lack of Spanish. I downloaded the first part of a Spanish course a few days ago.)
Weather: Glorious sunshine, with just one small cloud that blocked the sun for a couple of minutes.
Going for a run this morning may seem like a contrary thing to have done, given what I said yesterday about my knee, but past experience told me that neither exercise nor rest would remarkably alter its state. Moreover, the cure last time came the morning after I'd jumped over a gate and landed heavily on that leg, so I thought maybe a run would help. I limped up the road by way of a poor excuse for a warm up, then burst into a jog - whereupon all pain stopped. It stayed stopped for quite a while after I'd finished too. Meanwhile, I enjoyed the golden glow on the snowy Picos de Europa mountains as the sun made it over the hills to the east. It was a bit parky, mind, with the highest temperature I saw on a thermometer whilst out being 4 degrees, and the lowest 2 degrees.
Mick would have been happy to stay put in San Vicente for another night, but I wasn't enamoured either with the slope of the parking nor the noise of the night-time revellers going home in the early hours of the morning, so after breakfast we got ready to move.
Before we left, however, we took one last stroll, as today was market day (had it not been so, we could have parked in the actual car park, rather than in the roadside parking, and not been on a slant). Most of the stalls held no interest for us, the exception being the cheesemonger. Having accepted that it's unlikely that we are going to venture far into the Picos de Europa area, and having had the local cheeses recommended to us (thank you Humprey!), we were pleased to see that this stall had a good selection, with about half a dozen blues, including two village names we recognised. We went for the Tresviso and very much hoped we were going to like it as the easiest thing to do was to accept the piece that was already cut, which was bigger than we would have chosen had our language skills not been so pathetic*. We ate some for lunch and are pleased to report that we liked it very much. I'm now wishing we had bought some of another type too. I must learn my numbers and how to ask for pieces of something, in case we come across the same stall at another local market.
Tresviso cheese - very blue, aged and firm, but not overpowering in flavour.
Pointing Bertie westwards once more, we journeyed all of 8km to our next stopping point - a supermarket. Their car park was not inspiring, and was not in the sun, but we paused there for elevenses: a) to try to use their wifi (failed - it wasn't working properly); and b) to decide where to go next. I outlined the two choices to Mick, we made a decision, then I noticed a nearby (2km, as the crow flies) parking area that had good reviews, so we came here for a night instead.
What a spot! It's lovely here. Here's a collage of the view, the first taken just after we had ventured down to the beach and walked across to (and over) the rocky outcrop, the second taken as we got back from this afternoon's walk, just at high tide:
Do you see the thing in the sea on the left side of the beach in the 'low tide' shot? That's one of three tractors being operated by a single chap down there, harvesting seaweed (one tractor had the rake to get the seaweed out of the sea, another was used to pick up the resulting pile of weed, then there was the one with a trailer, into which it was deposited). We watched his work for quite some time and were surprised at quite how far into the surf he took his machine. Here's a zoom shot:
The tide, incidentally, came in quickly to cover the beach. There was still a large expanse of sand when we came back from the rocky outcrop, but only about twenty minutes later we would have got our feet wet. In fact, Mick nearly did, but that was just one of those sneaky waves. These two snaps were taken seconds apart:
Having downloaded a walking route from wikiloc.com, after lunch a pleasant hour and a half was spent visiting a couple of other beaches and a viewpoint. The latter didn't give much of a view, because of trees.
Back at Bertie, we turned him around to put his windscreen away from the magnificent view. That not only gave us the solar gain from the last of the afternoon sun, but also put us level (taking advantage of Bertie's inbuilt slope from back to front). If we stay here again tomorrow, we'll be turning back around in the morning, no doubt to the amusement of the occupants of the other van that came and joined us late this afternoon (a rare breed - they took the space right at the opposite corner of the car park!)
(*We are working on our lack of Spanish. I downloaded the first part of a Spanish course a few days ago.)
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