Day 22 – León to Oviedo

July 10, 2019

We got up early before leaving León, to go see the Cathedral.  We wanted to try to see the cathedral in each town that we visit.  After we checked out and lugged our stuff to the car, we headed over to the cathedral.  When we got there, we stepped inside the cathedral and there was a desk.  They were charging 7 euros each to go in and see the cathedral.  We have not encountered that before …. who charges to go into a church?  Geez… We have see the online pictures and, yes it has beautiful stained glass windows, but it looks like so many other big churches that we’ve seen that we decided to pass on the León Cathedral for the 14 euros.  Instead, we went to get some breakfast and coffee at a nice café overlooking the Cathedral’s plaza. We both had cafe con leche and we shared a napolitana (chocolate croissant) and a tortilla con patatas (quiche like dish with potato and egg) with pan (bread)

After relaxing and enjoying our breakfast, we went to a grocery store to pick up some picnic items. We were headed north to our next destination, Oviedo.  But along the way, with a slight detour, there was a nature park, Parque Natural Las Ubiñas-la Mesa, Reserva de la Biosfera, so we planned to detour through along the way.

As we left Leon, we noticed a drier landscape with which gave way to green rolling hills, and then green mountains covered with colorful wildflowers and white-gray rock outcroppings.  It was beautiful and I thought we had crossed over into the nature park, but we had not even reached it yet.  As we drove along, we finally entered the Park and cut through on a “detour” that Wayne found…oh no!!  (Kim and Ron, you can appreciate this – read on). Wayne is really good at finding these detours as he is a strong believer in taking the road less traveled. We started out on a nice two lane road occasionally seeing other cars with people taking in the sights. However, at one point as all the other cars turned right, we peeled off left on a marginally maintained, single lane road with the occasional huge pothole.

As we traveled along ridge lines with never ending views and through dense wildflowers, tall bushes, and trees it was kind of unclear exactly where this road was headed. We weren’t sure if the road would take us all the way through or if we would run into a gate or it would simply end and he would have to try to turn around. We often find ourselves in this situation when Wayne is driving and the plan is always to just drive and “see what happens”. It was beautiful so on we went.

There was a small river off the left and occasionally we would pass through picturesque little villages with VERY old stone homes, churches and farms. The farms were being worked with their perimeters marked by ancient rock walls. The history is amazing. There were horses, mules and other farm animals but we did not see any modern farm equipment. We saw a few people who mostly just stared at us as they don’t likely see many folks drive pass through and we probably stuck out like a sore thumb. We just drove respectfully slow and waved and were happy to sometimes get a hesitant wave back.

As we went through the last village we passed an elderly man watching the world go by while sitting on wooden chair and leaning on a cane in front of a old stone building. As we turned the corner, the single lane paved road ended and we were now on an unmaintained dirt trail. Wayne didn’t hesitate, in fact he just said “this is going to be interesting”, as he gunned it and we started climbing ever steeper through the dust, dirt and rocks in our little rental car.

I was kind of scared because we were in the middle of no where and there was no one out there and no cell service. If we got a flat tire, broke down or did encounter a problem, we would not be able to efficiently communicate and it would have been a walk for miles before we could even encounter another car, much less a town that could fix a tire or car. For those in my family that have been to Papa Fernandez to the cabana in Baja, the road reminded me of this old road… not quite as bad and not Mexico, but in the middle of absolutely nowhere, and still scary with only the two of us.  Wayne just laughed when I nervously said I was a little worried. He said all was fine and to just enjoy the view which was easy to do.

As we climbed higher and higher the road got worse in some areas and we had to crawl along to get through deep ruts and areas of sharp rocks. We finally found a smoother patch but, wouldn’t you know it, we encountered a shepherd tending to his flock of sheep and goats along the side of the road so had to slow again. As we passed his seven huge and seemingly friendly dogs came to investigate. As they got to Wayne’s window and we were talking to them Wayne made eye contact with the alpha dog who all of a sudden wasn’t digging us being there and started to growl. This immediately set off all the other dogs aggressively barking and surrounding us. We thought one was going to jump through Wayne’s window!! So we quickly drop the cameras and had to “roll them up!!” Unfortunately Sharon’s video below only shows our approach to the sheep, goats and friendly looking dogs, but stops just before all hell breaks loose.

As we pushed over a summit the dirt road finally popped out on another paved road on the north side of the park. There was small parking area for people to get out and take in the view and the people there kind of looked at us like “where did you come from?” It was hard to believe but this side of the park was even more beautiful with green and grey strata through massive rock outcroppings, pockets of deep red and black rocks in others, beautiful flowers and grass covered mountains forever.  It was really hard to capture all this in cell phone photos but we have tried.

We stopped at one place and decided to walk a bit along a trail that we saw.  It looked like a great place for a picnic, so we got out our groceries and headed on down the trail to a nice view point.  We encountered some bulls on the trail so as not to be outdone by my brave husband, I thought I would try to run with them.  They were not the least bit interested with me and Wayne later informed me that they were not bulls, but simple dairy cows…I didn’t know dairy cows had horns, and I didn’t believe Wayne at first, but I looked, and they did indeed have tits….I means teats 😊 

We had a great picnic in the beautiful green hills overlooking a valley with bread (and curious cows coming closer to check us out), jamon (ham), water, cheese, nuts, pears and wine we had picked up in Bordeaux.  We love wine.

We arrive a couple hours later to Oviedo.  Oviedo is a town in northwest Spain between the Cantabrian Mountains and the Bay of Biscay. As the capital of Asturias, it’s known for its medieval old town dating back to 920, the site of the Gothic Oviedo Cathedral with its 9th-century Holy Chamber. The Archaeological Museum of Asturias, in a nearby convent, displays regional artifacts.  It is a larger city, but very beautiful.  We had to park in a parking garage with about a 10-minute walk to the pension but check in was very easy, our room was perfect with a terrace overlooking the street, our host spoke perfect English, we had great internet and Wayne had a desk!

The desk was great because we arrived about 4:30 PM and Wayne had to get to work straight away.  We were in serious need for clean clothes, so I gathered some coins and headed out with a backpack full of smelly clothes and walked to the laundromat.  So far, the laundromats in Spain have been great.  They have different sized washers depending on your load size and you pay accordingly.  The washers also dispense detergent, disinfectant and fabric softener so I don’t have to worry about lugging that stuff around.  I had enough coin for the dryer today so it was nice to not have to lug wet laundry back to the room and hang it up everywhere.  The dryers are giant so you can put all the clothes into one machine.  Fun fact – The lint automatically flies out of the bottom of the dryer and there is a vacuum hose to suck it up. I hate to clean the lint screen.

Later, during Wayne’s lunch break, we took our nightly stroll to quickly look at some of the buildings at night in old town and on the main boulevard.  We walked for about a half hour and as we came back to our room, we realized that we were hungry.  There was a McDonald’s next door, so we grabbed a quick bite….I know, very cultural!

The adventure and beauty of the drive made it one of the best days we have had!

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