I wish I had something more interesting to say, but the lazy beach part of our tour continues! We left Barreiros on Tuesday to drive the shortish distance to Luarca a little further east, and along the way we stopped for a supermarket sweep in Ribadeo. By then Gill had had just about enough of me singing all the destination signs (Ribadeo, Vegadeo, Galileo Figaro Magnifico – o – o – o) so she was glad to give her ears a rest for a bit. The car park was in a dodgy-looking part of town so I stayed in Vince for ‘security’ reasons despite really wanting to spend an hour shopping. Shame.
We had an easy onward drive to Luarca where our site was perched on a clifftop looking down on the rocks. We had a look at our iMaps on the phone to find our way into town but the view of ‘our location’ looked different somehow – we couldn’t quite see where we were. It appears that since the satellite pics were taken, part of the cliff had fallen away through erosion eek! Our 3.5T vehicle was parked for two days only 5m from the edge, which made for interesting dreams at night! To make matters worse on our departure the receptionist said they won’t use that pitch for camper vans after this season, as their weight might cause more of the cliff to fall into the sea. Scary stuff.
In Luarca we took a long downhill walk into town for coffee and a look around. At the harbour we stuck our heads into the fish market – it’s a working, rather than a tourist environment so they weren’t keen on visitors barging around taking photos, although I did manage to sneak in the one below. Unlike our botanical knowledge we have a surprising ability to identify fish; they were landing red gurnard, sea-bass, sea-bream, monkfish and tons of mackerel. I’m fighting the urge to use a fish pun, but I may throw one in later just for the halibut.
On our final afternoon in Luarca the weather was a little cloudy so we took the opportunity to give Vince a right seeing to inside & out so he’d look good for our next destination. It took four hours to remove six weeks worth of grime and flies from poor old Vince – he’s looking much more handsome now.
As I write, coffee in hand, we find ourselves in Cudillero, a mere thirty minutes from Luarca. Apart from general laziness, our main reason for the slow-down is a text we received a week or so ago from our from our soon-to-be son-in-law, Jim. His band Black Moth is playing at a weekend festival in Piedras Blancas here in Spain & did we want to meet for lunch and hear them play? Luckily I packed my AC/DC t-shirt so we’re going to go along & get down with the kids on Friday – just like that old bloke you always felt sorry for when you attended shows in your teens.
Cudillero is one of the most unusual places we’ve been to; the campsite is a little out of town, about two miles, which we thought would be an easy cycle yesterday. It was a really easy cycle…on the way there. Unfortunately coming back was like cycling up a wall. You can see from the pics that the houses of the town rise steeply up the hill from the harbour & we had to pedal our socks off to get to the top. We arrived in the middle of a festival – everyone in their Sunday best (although it was Wednesday) sharing family time in the many open-air fish restaurants and sidrerias which lined the main square all the way down to the harbour. The air was filled with the smells of barbecuing fish and candy-floss & the sound of a band dressed like the Three Amigos – guitar, trumpet & percussion playing traditional sing-along foot-stomping Spanish music. Brilliant!
We really like this place; the town has clearly seen better days as many of the buildings were in need of a bit of renovation and tarting up, but I feel that added to its charm. It felt like they were saying, ‘Yes we’re a bit short of cash, and we’re not a perfect picture-postcard tourist trap – but we still value family life and we’re proud of our village so come and join us for some fun and we’ll make you very welcome.’
So we did, and they did!
Luarca looks really charming from all angles And I have to say I was worried for a minute, the suggestion of not including a pun! But sure enough there it was, I thought as much if you were to mullet over