May 1, 2012
La Hermida
north down the N-621 to Unquera
My knee feels a whole lot better when I get up and open the bedroom window's wooden shutters and see the blue sky. Oh, yes.
Ten minutes later I'm out the front door.
Being May 1st, there's a market set up aimed at visitors to Potes and I mooch around for a few minutes. There are various regional cheeses, homemade preserves and local honey on display, but the delicious smell of melting chocolate does it for me and for 5 euros I get a couple of bags of coated nuts: emergency rations just in case the ride gets hard... It's best to be prepared.
It's actually going to be an easy day, at least for the first 20-odd kilometers, as they are down and a brown sign says La Hermida and this is where the fun begins, remembering the final part of the bus ride up to Potes was special, winding along a narrow gorge - La Hermida. According to the sign, it lasts 22 km. Nice.
Cars are coming the other way: day-trippers. They're going where I've just come from no doubt and it seems a shame the weather went against me up in the Picos de Europa, but time is running out. Tomorrow marks my departure from Santander and I need to be close to the port, or near a train or bus station.
The vertical sides of the gorge are high and riding strikes me as a bit dangerous at times. The Rio Deva gushes alongside as my speed increases where there are overhangs - me trying to minimize the risk of getting hit by a rock falling. The tarmac has been dented in places by such. At some points, robust steel netting has been erected to help prevent serious accidents, although the 22 km are mostly a keep-your-fingers-crossed experience.
It's downhill, but progress is quite slow and it takes me quite a while to clock up the kilometres of stopping to take photos regularly as the view changes - a mighty peak coming into view and looking to out-do the one I've just taken a snap of. The scale and drama of the setting is hard to capture from road level, and I could really do with the broken 17 mm lens.
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British painter David Bomberg came this was in the 1930s and painted it - his Valley of La Hermida is one his better known paintings and in it he manages to put on canvas an idea of how wild and rugged the Picos de Europa are.
Now and then the walls move out and give some sunlight to the route. There are a few bridges that span the river and I spot an inflated raft being paddled downstream. Towards the end are a couple of small villages, and at one I buy some more oranges. Being a national holiday, the café is shut.
I don't stop in Panes and ride 12 more kilometres to Unquera. They are up then down and when I get there and call at both the bus and train stations. It seems there are no services running.
At the far eastern edge of the village is the roundabout where I took the coastal road up and this time I go straight, with San Vincent just 11 km away.
My map ends, but going from memory after last week's ride - when a gale was blowing - it's a mundane strip of Spain and the thought of continuing doesn't appeal very much. I stop at a large café by the wide highway and have a sandwich and a sit-down and collect my thoughts.
One of the postcards for sale in a wire rack features a map with places of interest and shows a simplified route. Not exactly a detailed topographical layout, but it gives an idea of where hotels will be.
I opt to keep going to San Vincent as I stayed there before and there's a bus station, but then just 50 metres along a 'hostal' sign on a large building catches my eye and when the woman at reception says a single room in the two-star place is only 18 euros a night my enthusiasm for riding any more goes straight out the window and I call it a day.
Today's ride: 48 km (30 miles)
Total: 2,443 km (1,517 miles)
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