Europe 2: León, Oviedo and Picos de Europa

Everyone seemed to love the AirBnB that we stayed at in Campille, which was out in the country.

When I saw the nice lounge chairs on the big lawn, I had hoped to do my morning scripture study out there. Unfortunately, the sprinklers were hitting all the chairs in the morning, so that didn't quite work out. So I sat on a regular chair nearby, and it was still pretty.

Linette went for a run, and as she got outside the local cluster of houses, she found a magical trail through some woods that made her really happy.

Nico made us a Spanish style breakfast of toast and meats (using a pan as the toaster).

León

After we packed up and headed out, our first stop that day was León. It was first founded as a military encampment in 29 B.C., as a settlement in 74 A.D., and became the capital of the Kingdom of León in 910, which took an active part in the "reconquista" against the Moors, and later became one of the main kingdoms of medieval Spain.

"León" means "lion, and wouldn't you know it, as soon as we walked into town, a bronze lion jumped out of a manhole and bit Nico's arm!! :O

We decided to go into the Casa Botines, a modernist building in León built in 1892 by Antoni Gaudí (the same guy who designed the Sagrada Familia ["sacred family"] cathedral that we saw in Barcelona 5 years ago).

Gaudí designed some pretty funky buildings, but this one was built to look more like the other buildings in town, such as the palace next door. He included towers on the corners, both to provide the look he was aiming for, and also to provide more windows so that there would be more light in the corners of the rooms.

The building was used for a few different things (warehouse and residences; then as bank offices), and is now a museum to Spanish art as well as to the building itself. It had some innovative designs, like the use of iron pillars to create an open floor plan, instead of the typical thick load bearing walls; the use of many windows to provide ventilation and natural light; and this internal courtyard with skylights to provide ventilation and natural light in the center of the building. (And many more that I don't recall).

The upper floors were originally rented out as residences, but now house Spanish artwork.

This is art.

At the front of the building is a sculpture of St. George slaying the dragon, since St. George is the patron saint of Catalonia, where Gaudí was from. One interesting thing was that while the stone used for the building was strong, the stone used for the sculpture was not, so it started to deteriorate in the weather. In 1959 it was decided that it would be replaced with a replica. When they went to remove the sculpture, they were surprised to find a lead pipe embedded inside that had the plans of the building (signed by Gaudí) and some other papers. So the replica has that and another time capsule, just for fun.

After touring that building, we found a place to eat.

Sienna got a mushroom dish to go with her mushroom shirt.

We had some other traditional meat dishes, too, so we got to sample a variety of tasty things.

Down the road was the León cathedral.

The León Cathedral was pretty awesome. There were some Roman baths and another church on this site in ancient times, but this cathedral was built starting in the 1200s.

It makes great use of gothic arches to reduce the need for thick walls, making room for one of the largest collections of medieval stained glass in the world.

We all got audio tour things to listen to so that we could learn about the different aspects of the cathedral.

The organ has some pipes that stick out horizontally like trumpets.

I liked this little manger scene.

The choir seats were sort of built in the middle of the cathedral later on, which apparently some people complain about, because it kind of breaks up the otherwise massive interior. 

But the choir seats are very ornately carved, so those were interesting to see.

This is one of the few sculptures of Mary that I've seen that shows her still expecting a baby.

To one side of the cathedral is a big courtyard with a covered walkway all the way around. An interesting twisty sculpture is there, and there are partial frescoes on the wall that are very old.

Afterwards we got some ice cream to keep us going. While in line, we met a bunch of American kids who were in Spain as exchange students for a few weeks, so they were all trying to speak Spanish to each other.

In addition to the famous buildings we saw, I enjoyed seeing some colorful, cute buildings like this one.

As we got back to where we had parked, we saw that there was a market across the street, so we took a moment to check it out. One of the booths was apparently selling Dad's garage! :)

Oviedo

From León, we drove an hour north to Oviedo, which is the capital city of the Asturias in northern Spain. It was founded in 761 A.D. by two monks, so it doesn't have Roman or Visigoth stuff in it.

When we arrived at about 8:30pm, we checked into an AirBnB on the top floor of a building. It had a balcony with views of the town, including a cathedral in the distance.

The wall in the lobby was covered with a big mirror.

Since it was still light out, we walked around and explored the historic district of Oviedo.

The cathedral there was not open, but we enjoyed the view of it from the plaza.

Oh, no! Linette poked her finger on the top of it!

The Way of Saint James, or the Camino de Santiago as it’s called in Spain, is one of the oldest and most famous Christian pilgrimages, probably right behind Jerusalem. Ending in Santiago de Compostela (where we visited a few days later) and starting from any number of spots, though usually in France, the pilgrimage can take days to months.

These scallop shells are placed all along the way to show that you're on one of the paths to Santiago. This one was embedded in one of the tiles of the square.

In one plaza, I saw a sign saying, "Oviedo is with Ukraine." I sure hope and pray peace can return there soon.

Linette bought a tasty fried thing for us to try from a fast food place. I sat on the ground to eat it because my feet were pretty much done for the day.

In addition to the really old buildings, there are charming more recent ones like this.

Sienna stood on her tippy-toes to try to be as tall as Isabel.

Then Isabel stood on hers.

Then I changed the camera angle to give Sienna a shot at winning.

Sienna found a fun tree as we walked through a park.

In the evening the old area of town looks surreal.

Picos de Europa

On Tuesday, June 28, 2022, we left our stuff in our AirBnB and drove from Oviedo to the national park called "Picos de Europa" (Peaks of Europe) for a day of hiking in the tall mountains there.

We purposely chose to tour northern Spain instead of southern Spain at this time of year because it is cooler and green up north, and very hot down south. We loved the green hills and the vegetation everywhere.

The little towns we passed through were charming. Apparently some of the small towns are having trouble keeping people from leaving for the bigger cities, so sometimes there are great deals on properties there.

This tunnel reminded me just a little of the tunnels at Zion National Park that have windows looking out over the canyons.

As we neared the start of our park, there was one last little town named Poncebos, which was by the river Cares (CAH-res).

We parked near the trailhead and started our hike at about 10:30 a.m.

One of the most famous hikes in the park is called Ruta del Cares (or the Cares Trail, named after the river that flows below it). I originally ruled this hike out because I thought it would be too long for us, but Isabel's family had been on part of it before and loved it, so the plan was to hike just part of it.

However, we accidentally went to the wrong end of the hike, which began with a continuous uphill hike for the first hour with little shade.

But we decided to just go for it and see how it went, and we did great.

From the sign at the beginning of the trail, we could see that the trail all the way to the town of Cain was a total of 13km (8 miles) each way, so we planned to just go partway.

The steep, rugged terrain had its own beauty, though it did remind me at times of Mordor.

The drop-offs were very steep, with a river running far below. I had to look down to watch the trail because it was a little rocky, but the trail moved so much more quickly than the valley floor did, which was so far below. This set off alarms in my brain, causing just a little vertigo. I read of people who had to turn back because of that.

There were mountain goats wandering in the area, which was a lot of fun. Isabel gave one her apple.

Nico has prosthetic hips, but I think he did better than me that day.

There were a couple of old structures along the way. This one probably isn't very old, but there were some stone structures that made me think: In Utah, if you seen an old building, it probably isn't more than 150 years old. But in Spain, some of the structures we see are 2000 years old, so you never know.

Since this old building was the first shade we came to, we stopped and took a few pictures there.

Here's a little video of Sienna enjoying the view.

The mountains were pretty spectacular, even to those of us who live along the Rocky Mountains.

The mountain goats were pretty used to people. Apparently 300,000 people travel this trail each year.

It was the kind of day where your camera just can't capture the size of things—like the 800 foot drop right behind me and Sienna.

I kept getting behind because of stopping to take pictures. (There's everyone else, up ahead of me).

This cliff looked like a face.

This formation makes it look like there's a curving path that goes right on up the mountain between the rocks. But look at the tiny people on the path just below it!

The views kept being amazing the whole way!

After the hour and a half that we originally planned to go, turning around and going back seemed like a silly idea, because it was just starting to get more pretty and interesting, we were all feeling good, and we had all day. So we decided to keep going for a while.

There was a little waterfall with a bridge over it where we could sit in the shade for a moment.

Eventually we stopped for lunch under a merciful tree. It wasn't actually all that hot that day, but being in the sun so much was still a bit toasty.

Linette offered chips to some passers-by. The first people just laughed. The second time, the people took her up on it.

As we went along, tunnels became more common. The beginning of the hike was along a sloped hill, but the rest of it was generally carved into the side of a cliff.

The water of the river was pretty with its deep blue-green color.

Things got greener the further along we went.

Sometimes as you walked along, you didn't realize you were walking over arches built to support the path.

This window looked like a heart. :)

Paths were carved right into the rock, sometimes with arches and rock used to support the trail.

This mama goat was really friendly (it wanted food), and the kid was cute.

From this platform, I could see the canal that paralleled the trail for part of the way.

At one point there was a natural spring where you could refill your water bottle. That came at a good time. By this point, we had decided to hike all the way to the town at the end of the trail, where there was said to be a bus or taxi you could take to get back to the start.

The last hour or so of the trail had a lot of variety.

The river was hundreds of feet below the trail for most of the hike, but finally there was a path down to the river itself.

Right towards the end of the trail, things got a lot wetter.

I believe this is a "fish ladder", allowing fish to smell and swim their way back up to their birthplace when it is time to spawn.

At the end of the trail was a dam with a reservoir behind it.

Now that we were at the end of the trail, it was the perfect time to soak our feet in the freezing water.

The girls found some cats to play with, as we were now right next to a little town.

And there was a sleepy dog near the first house we came to.

And the best part of the day may have been that there was an ice cream place in the town of Caín de Valdeón, and that really hit the spot.

We quickly learned, however, that there was no bus that took us back to where we started, and that a taxi would be €280. Linette offered to book it back to the car and drive it around to pick us up. Fortunately, I was first able to get the ice cream shop's wifi working on my phone, and we could see what the problem was.

There was not really a road that went from where we were (the red pin) to the starting point (the yellow star), so it was a 2 1/2 hour drive to get there, so a round trip to there would take longer than walking back.

We also found that after the initial steep climb, we had been going gently uphill most of the way, so the way back wouldn't be as bad. It had taken us 4 1/2 hours to walk this way, but that was with a lot of stops for pictures and such, so we thought we could get back down a lot quicker.

As impossible as it had originally seemed to do the entire hike both directions, it now didn't seem that bad. I guess ice cream to me is like spinach to Popeye.

On the way back, we saw things from a different angle than on the way up.

As this video clip shows, the drops are pretty intense.

As I hiked along, this goat decided to follow me for a while.

The girls got pretty far ahead, but I found them near the waterfall, resting in the shade, while the mama goat tried to get their food.

The little kid was content to hang out near Isabel.

I checked my back for snacks, and saw what was once a pair of fudge striped cookies.

"Well..." I said, and then looked at Sienna until she obliged with "...that's the way the cookie crumbles."

I pulled out a bag of something from my pack, and the goat heard the crinkling and came right over to me. It was funny how hard it was trying to get it from me, as shown in this little video clip.

Soon we approached the dry, steep section. It was easier on the way back, of course, although Nico's prosthetic hips did cause him some pain at this point. He bought a walking stick at the town, which helped, and Mari helped him on some of the steps. Towards the end, I walked close enough to him that when there was a big step down, he could use my shoulder as a hand rail to ease himself down. He was fine (probably better than me) on the regular walking.

It was interesting to watch the goats handle the rocky hills. They would awkwardly slip on loose gravel, but then effortlessly walk along the side of pretty steep rock. This flock was happily munching away on the grass.

We finally made it to the end! It took us about 4 1/2 hours to go up the hike, and more like 3 to get back down. (The girls would have done it in 2 hours if they hadn't stopped to wait for us).

In all, we spent 8 hours, 40 minutes on the hike (including lunch, ice cream and other short breaks), and hiked 26 kilometers (16 miles). I was worried about that being way too far, but it was great, and Linette said she had been wanting to do the whole hike anyway, so I'm really glad we did it.

Overall, I would say that this hike was epic and awesome!

We drove back to Oviedo to our same AirBnB that evening, and I was a bit stiff as we walked up to dinner. Mari and Isabel sometimes joke that with his hip prothesis, Nico kind of walks like a penguin. As I walked next to him that evening on the way to dinner, I was sore enough that I was having trouble walking straight myself. "Somos dos pinguinos," I told him ("We are two penguins."). He smiled and agreed.

Once again, we started dinner around 10:20pm, and we got home about 11:30.

We had some good local fare.

We shared this huge breaded veal around.

There was a local apple cider that they served at that restaurant, and the tradition is to pour it from really high up--sometimes without even looking.

We finished up with some great dessert.

When we got home, we found out that our niece, Kimberly Parry, was giving an online tour of the Priesthood Restoration church history site in Pennsylvania. She had been serving there as a missionary and would soon be transferring to Palmyra for a few months before finishing her mission up in Texas. She walked us through the various buildings and local woods, and it was so great to hear from her. It was a beautiful, touching end to a great, long day.

We slept quite well that night.

In the next episode, we continue our journey west to spend some time at the coast before making our way back to Madrid.