Hola!
We woke to another lovely, sunny day in Spain – even though the weather forecasters had predicted rain last night and today! However…In all the preparation for our trip this year, I had done some but not a huge amount of planning for the “caving” part in Northern Spain. So, this morning, we began in earnest, and it took us a good 2½ hours to finally settle things appropriately. As it turns out, ALL of the caves in the region are closed BOTH Monday and Tuesday!? Unfortunate…however, as we are going to be in the area for a week, we should be able to figure things out and see the caves we want to see. We started by Robert, speaking Spanish, and the owner also speaking Spanish, contacting Tito Bustillo cave, one of the most famous in the area, and getting us a reservation for Thursday afternoon. From there, we discovered a site that had access to reservations at six of the other area caves. We are now booked for three caves on Wednesday, two caves (and a potential third) on Thursday, and one each on Friday and Saturday. We will need to get out and about fairly early tomorrow, so will have to check and see if there is any way we could have breakfast a little early.
And speaking of breakfast! It turns out, that we’re the only people staying at this incredibly lovely inn at the moment! No idea why, as it’s truly stunning – in fact, R has moved it up past Yacht Classic as his favorite hotel of the trip! Breakfast downstairs was delicious – starting with freshly squeezed orange juice and a gently toasted ham and cheese sandwich! From there we were offered fruit, cereal, yogurt – but settled on a basket of croissants, homemade cake and cookies – all wonderful!
We couldn’t believe it, but it was really 11 a.m. before we were ready to go out! So, as the caves were closed today (which still sounds odd…) we decided to head to Oviedo to see the sights – and anyone who has seen “Vicky Cristina Barcelona” knows there are sights to see! In fact, there is a life-size statue of Woody Allen (the movie’s director) in town, and apparently they have trouble keeping his glasses on, as people keep stealing them! They were definitely missing (or parts of them were) this morning!
It took about half an hour to reach Oviedo, and it’s quite a lovely small city (the movie told the truth!). In fact, we came in about mid-day, and most of the city was already closed for lunch! (We were thinking that in other Spanish cities we have visited, among them Barcelona and Valencia, things didn’t shut down like this at all!) In fact, it was downright spooky, the deserted streets! We found parking for the car a block away from their central park – which was, indeed, packed with people – maybe this is where they all are? We never found out exactly what was going on this particular Tuesday, but they were setting off fireworks (which scared me to death!) every hour on the quarter…BANG!
We stopped off at the Tourist Information Office and got a slightly larger area map, as well as information on restaurants for lunch. Then we strolled through the park – WOW! I didn’t know this, but the Celts who settled in/visited the north of Spain left behind them the tradition of bag pipes! Who knew? We followed some bag pipe music, which brought us to the center of the park. A band (without pipes) was playing music in the pavilion; there was a market going on in the outskirts; people were everywhere sitting on the grass (this is DEFINITELY not Paris!) picnicking; lots of kids and dogs and balloons! Terrific!
From the park we decided to find a place for lunch, and followed the map to Calle Gastona which is near the old part of town. More music – this time bagpipes, drum and accordion – a not unmusical combination! – and picked a restaurant at random – La Pumarada – and in we went. (Would have loved to sit outside, but the smoke was VERY heavy…)
Oh, and did I mention that this part of Spain speaks a language known as BABLE? (NEVER heard of that, either!) So, we did have some problems with the menu … until our nice waiter found a menu that had Bable, Spanish, German, French and some English – which was quite a menu, I’ll tell you. We both ordered salads to start – lettuce, tomatoes and onion. Then for mains, I ordered their beef entrecote which came with an Asturian cheese sauce, fries and more salad. Robert ordered a bowl of fresh clams which came in a butter and garlic sauce. My steak was so huge that I had to have Robert help me with it, so needless to say, we did have a big lunch. (One problem, though – we had no idea that when we thought we were asking for a GLASS of wine for Robert, we actually ordered the whole BOTTLE, but as it was house wine, it was only 9 Euros…but still…for the record, he did NOT finish it!)
As we were right on the edge of the old town, we detoured around several streets – and mostly deserted plazas to take some pictures. Oviedo is an old and beautiful and spotlessly clean city! Very nice (although I still prefer Gijon…which I incorrectly blogged was also known as “Xijon” – it’s “Xixon” – try and say that three times fast! (Apparently I don’t have enough saliva to say it correctly, or at least that’s what R says…)
Back into the car and a quick exit out of town -- streets totally deserted, as I said! Headed back to the hotel, arriving a little after 3:30 p.m. Hard to say exactly where the day went! Especially as I then went promptly for MY siesta; R having Caltech work to do. Up about 6 (!) and R sound asleep in a chair (told you they were comfortable!). Blogging now, and then we will again pull ourselves together and make the trek into Gijon for tapas for dinner. Lovely day; very relaxing!
Oh! Emmy II, our GPS from Turkey! Our Garmin GPS has a variety of voices for you to choose to guide you. We’ve always chosen the British female – whose name is Emily; we call her Emmy, as she is part of the family. However, Emmy does have her share of idiosyncrasies – in Tucson, her pronunciation of Spanish names is terrible (and you thought my accent was bad!) – but her abbreviation interpretation is even worse! For instance, we are currently in the area known as Asturias, Spain. One of the roads we took today is labeled AS-1 – and she has translated the “AS” as “American Samoa”…thus, we’d be heading along, and get the instruction “turn left on American Samoa one” – which shorted to the word “ASI” – very confusing…
More later!
Much love,
m
xxx
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