Bustio to Llanes. 19.9 miles.
A wonderful day. Rick and I weren’t sure given that the hike was supposed to be 17ish miles, but it was fine. I was very done by the end, but the vast majority of the day was just an unfolding of beauty, mountain and ocean and villages.
Since the apartment didn’t have breakfast and the cafeteria didn’t start until 8, we decided we’d just stock up on our food items and go when we woke up. Plus the apartment owner had left us home-made yoghurt that turned out to be incredible. No way to thank you, but wish we could have.
We were on our way by 7:20 and walked in wonder for an hour. Even though the first hill was immediate and Rick said it was like being given a double black diamond when you just walked out on the slope for the first time. But really, over quickly and wonderful with the cow bells, church bells, green all over.
It was misty, cool, perfect, the rain never overwhelmed
A wonderful little altar, fresh flowers, so lovingly cared for
And then we saw two women going to care for it
Interesting plants, seems like it should be a big flower coming out, but branch on the left is what comes out
We ran into a couple from Vermont after about 1.5 hours and they were just delightful. Both fascinating, Rick and I fell into conversation and that kept up for another hour. I’d already drunk my protein shake and started on my protein snack when we finally found an open cafe and stopped. Yay. And that was our only stop available all day, glad we stopped!
Then we were back on our own, walking, dreaming, about 6 hours in, starting to listen to books.
Unexpected coves, beaches would appear around a corner
Great little towns with wonderful color
Finally see our town, way down there
We finally walked town around 2:30 which wasn’t bad at all and a faster pace than normal.
Both of us had feet that were calling for different shoes so went straight to the hotel, change quickly and then went looking for food. A lot of it. We went back to a restaurant that we’d seen earlier that was full of people and got a table outside, looking at the marina.
Rick had to take a photo of these guys, they never took their helmets off!
Rick headed back to the hotel, but I’d gotten a burst of energy when we were walking to the restaurant and I saw what looked like a medieval town right near our hotel. So cool!
Yet again, I had no expectations for the town and have been absolutely delighted with what we found. Another port town, made it’s living from whaling, city walls from 1200’s, church from 1300’s, alongside the new and beautiful. There’s a beach right outside our hotel and the ancient walls are right across from it and the mountains ring behind the whole town. Incredible. This has been so different from the Camino de Frances or Primitivo because the towns are all port towns, or mountain towns and have so much character. I loved those other caminos for sure, but wow the towns/villages are additive on this one.
I started to walk, first saw the casino – a number of towns had this, all built late 1800’s or very early 1900’s.
Town hall, totally different next door
Turned a corner and saw this!
Had to wander this area, so beautiful
Church from the 1300’s and this is just the back, La Iglesia de Santa Maria del Conceyu. In order to build the church the town raised a tax with which everyone collaborated. These days, the church is still owned by the town of Llanes.
This is the front, couldn’t get back enough in the little square to get a photo of the whole building.
Walls across from our hotel
I took a few videos trying to capture the bells and the town and ocean. There’s a wall going up outside our hotel across the beach and you can walk all along this wide park-like walk for an extra 1.6 kilometers to the next town. We’re going to do that tomorrow morning. Amazing the attention given to the outdoors and public spaces.
Our hike tomorrow is at least 19.5, but we’re thinking we’re going to shorten it. It’s so nice here, I really want to do that walk that adds the extra AND there are two monasteries I’d really like to see tomorrow AND another wonderful fishing village. Our last night. So rather than be totally wiped out, we’re opting for choices. We’ll start early again, maybe we’ll change our minds, but we’ve gotten the name of the taxi company and we may call!
Reb's Walks! 