Spain - Part 1

Week 20 – 15th to 21st October

San Sebastián

We cross the border from Southern France and into Northern Spain. First stop is San Sebastián, which actually is only about 20km from France. It is a seaside town and a nice one at that; there isn’t a great deal to it but it’s pleasant to wander its pretty streets, saunter along its good city beach and take in some of the many tapas bars.




The Northern Coastline

The plan was to drive along the coast taking into the pretty little bays we had read about. However, this turned out to be rather disappointing and we moved through very quickly; the beaches were ok but the villages/towns behind them were unattractive and not places we would want to stop at, and with perhaps one exception, the coast drive itself was non eventful and uninteresting.


Picos de Europa

Being unimpressed with the coast we decide to head inland; in fact you only have to travel about 20km to find the Picos de Europa and some absolutely beautiful countryside. The Picos are a mountain range, with a highest summit of more than 2600 metres, some decent villages and some fantastic scenery with gorges and valleys in abundance.

The view from our campsite in Potes.

Fuente Dé

Part of the central Picos, Fuente Dé sits at 1078m and, 4 minutes later in a cable car, you are part of the Macizo Central a further 762m up. Not usually ones for taking these sorts of tourist options, we aren’t in the mood for hiking and wanted the views without the effort; it was worth it. It was a glorious day and, in my humble opinion, there is little that beats the immense feeling of being high up in the mountains; admittedly it is somewhat more rewarding if you have hiked there but nevertheless…

Lagos de Covadonga

Within the western Picos is Covadonga, from which a 12km (very hairy, especially in the Lunar) drives takes you to 2 very beautiful lakes. In our experience, lakes quite often disappoint, but I have to say these are most certainly worth the trip. (As with everything throughout this blog, Im sure that if this was ventured in the peak traffic of summer there may be a slight haze on the opinion.)

Lago de Enol

Lago de la Ercina