(“Peregrino” is Spanish for “pilgrim”). Lights went out last night in the pilgrim dorms at 10pm and were still out when our alarm went off at 6:50am. We both slept well, though I was glad to have an eye mask and earplugs. We had a quick start and were off at dawn at 7:45am.
Today’s route took us over lots of rolling hills. Many were because of valleys formed by rivers where the road would descend down to the river, there’d be a bridge to cross, and then a hill back up the other side. There were many nice views of the ocean, sometimes with secluded beaches and inlets, other times of high cliffs rising up from the water. We’ve found a couple other things unique to Asturias. First are the odd raised store houses, that we learned were to keep grain away from rodents. Second is the vast number of Sidrerias (“cidery”) which is pretty much synonymous here with “restaurant”, since they all serve food and all the restaurants here serve the local cider.
We had chatted with the one other cycling pilgrim at the hostel, Jurgi Melero, from Basque Country. He was riding a mountain bike and we leap frogged each other quite a few times over the course of the day, even stopping at the same spot for morning coffee.
We had an afternoon stop again of spanish omelet and drinks (we’re quite enjoying this new addition to our routine) along with a grocery replenishment closer to our destination, Blanco Hotel near Navia.
I had a quick dip in the pool, Viki read her book on a lounge chair, and then we were off to a nice dinner. It was a 20 minute walk through farm fields to La Quintana Galicia Restaurant, which was a super homely restaurant run by Adrian and his mum. We ordered the house specialties of pulpo a feira (octopus) and the house special cod. I also had a glass of albariño wine, which is typical to Asturias and multiple people have recommended us to try. Everything was delicious and Adrian even drove us back to our hotel afterwards.
