Another day off today! We’re in a small town called Benia de Onis at the base of the famous mountain region, Picos de Europa. We have two nights in a nice spa hotel with a pool, so I decided to go for a ride and hike and Viki enjoyed the time relaxing in the room and by the pool. We began by having the hotel buffet breakfast, similar to the last hotel, but the cheese was slices instead of manchego, there was no Nutella, and no jars of nuts (but there was somehow a massive jar of pine nuts).
I cycled one of the famous climbs of the Vuelta de España, “Lagos de Codovanga”, which was a single climb over 1,000m elevation with sections over 18%. The first half I cycled with another rider who had been coming up behind me, Pablo Doblas, from Malaga (in the south of spain) who’s up here for 8 days vacation cycling. Once at the top, I left my bike with the tourist info booth lady and hiked up to the Refugio Vegarredonda. The scenery was beautiful, being in the alpine and surrounded by high mountain peaks. I quickly had a beer at the refugio before racing back to Viki to make our 4:30pm spa appointment.
I arrived just in time, at 4:20pm and we alternated through cold and hot pools, pools with jets, an ice bucket shower, and sauna. It was a fun experience in a cool cave setting.
We went for dinner at 8pm at a restaurant across the street. We got the fixed menu for €18 each and are now massively stuffed. First courses were a plate of cured meats and rockfish pate. Second courses were fabada (a typical Asturian bean and meat dish) and a rice dish with prawns. Third courses were an ox steak and slow cooked little goat (delicious and tasted like lamb). Desserts were cheesecake and hazelnut cake. We also each got a drink, which ended up being an entire 700mL bottle of cider and an entire bottle of rioja wine. We were dumbfounded (and could fortunately take the wine to go).
