August in Northern Spain - Week 2

Having settled in at our Asturias seaside AirBNB, we spent the week visiting other areas in the region, mostly smaller towns and villages.

Cudillero

A scenic but crowded -- due to its small size -- town, it was located about 15 minutes east of our lodging.  It was cute, but jam-packed and with difficult parking, so we only made one visit.

Salinas

This city is about 30 minutes east of where we were staying.  It boasted a popular wide and flat beach, and we ate at Restaurant Éleonore overlooking the water.

Somieda Natural Park

Somiedo Natural Park is a protected area located in the central part of the Cantabrian Mountains in Asturias.  It was about a 90-minute drive from our seaside location, and there are some peaks over 7,000 feet in height.  It is perhaps best known in Spain as one of the last refuges of the Cantabrian brown bear.  We took some short hikes and enjoyed the scenery.​

Aviles

Located near picturesque Salinas, Aviles is an industrial city, which nonetheless boasts of some excellent restaurants.  Our first dining spot was Sidreria Casa Lin, a cider house and renowned seafood restaurant.  Anthony Bourdain and chef José Andrés ate at Casa Lin in 2018.

A few days later, we returned to Aviles to eat at Gunea, a small restaurant run by a husband & wife team.  The food was some of the best so far on this trip.

Oviedo

This town is the capital of the Asturias region and is located about 30 miles inland.  Oviedo is both the beginning of the Camino Primitivo, the oldest Camino route, and the end of the Camino del Norte.  It was from Oviedo that King Alfonso II (791-842) set out to verify the remains of Saint James.  Thus, the pilgrimage route from Oviedo to Santiago was the original route taken by many pilgrims on the Camino de Santiago.

Luarca

This seaside town is about 20 minutes west of us, and it was quite a lovely location.  

Asturias is one of the eight Celtic nations, thus there is actually a tradition of bagpipe music which we saw on our visit to Luarca.  

We ate at a restaurant called Meson el Centro, which was just outside of Luarca.  The six-course set menu was fantastic, but also a ridiculous amount of food and a fabulous value at 35 euros.

...but back to ​Oviñana

As much as we liked visiting these other Asturian towns and areas, we also enjoyed just chillin' in our adopted town of Oviñana.  The proximity to beaches and ocean walks on which we could take Ryder, along with its small town, relaxed vibe, made it a perfect spot to come back to at the end of the day!

"Bye, Asturias! See you next year!"