Tuesday, January 11, 2011

And then I didn't stop moving for a month (Pt. 1)



Oh, this is just in case you've forgotten what I look like. And to show off these amazing American peanuts marketed in a super-American way... decorated by none other than Ms. Statue of Liberty and the good ol' red, white n' blue. Yea!




(And on to the real reason I'm writing...)


Right after my "longest Thanksgiving ever," I jumped directly into one of my longest journeys ever. It started off with a nice road trip to a town only half an hour away from Gijon, with two hungover girls: Jenny the German and Christina the Canadian. I, for once, was not hungover! Victory!!

Llanes

We started off with a wander around a little old fisherman town called Llanes. We arrived at dusk but were still able to appreciate the view of sharp, pointy rocks popping out of the sandy beach, decorated by a backdrop of snow capped mountains. Oh, the north, how I love thee. A walk around town led us down some dark cobbled alleyways and into the portal of a crazy elderly lady's hotel, but we made it out just fine.

Picos de Europa- view from the top

Spending the night at a cheap, over-heated (better than under-heated?) hotel in a tiny pueblo kept us close to our next sight to see: we took off early to go to one of Asturias most important sites, Covadonga. Yes, it's just another convent buried in the mountains where another virgin supposedly came to yet another soldier telling him to fight in the name of god or something like that... but it was a cool site to see before heading up to the treacherous winds of "los lagos" at Picos de Europa. (Yes, I realize I just name dropped famous sites in Asturias. Los lagos= the lakes. Picos de Europa= a huge, beautiful national park in Asturias.)

The second lago

We drove up the skinniest "road" accompanied by an insane amount of cars going both up and down. Parking at the top, we hopped out of the car to realize that the winds were so strong we could barely stay standing. The combination of the wind with the un-plowed walking path (of course, who would clear sidewalks during the biggest tourist weekend of the year?) made for an interesting climb up. Well, the hassle and wet socks were worth it. The view of the lakes and the snowy mountains was, cheesily enough, breathtaking!

Roman bridge in Cangas de Onis

Next stop: Cangas de Onis. Turns out Cangas de Onis is one of the biggest tourist trap towns I have ever seen, but it's historical importance makes it a must-see anyways. It was in this town that the Spanish reconquest of Spain started. You see, from 711-1492 the Arabic people invaded and had control over almost all of Spain. It was in this town that the reconquest of the country started with a dude named Pelayo. (Funny thing is, it took the Arabs only 4 or 5 years to conquer all of Spain, whereas it took the Spanish from 718-1492 to get it back.)

A really old lion in a really old town.

It was then that spontaneity took over. I opened the guidebook and decided we should stop by the city of three lies: Santillana del Mar. Why the three lies? It's name itself screams deception. The city is not particularly holy (santi), flat (llana) or on the sea (mar). (Yes I stole that from Lonely Planet but I thought it was funny.) The pueblo was absolutely precious. Medieval to the max. We stayed in a medieval hotel with medieval walls, windows and heating system (aka, coooold). We wandered around in awe of the city and then visited the biggest local attraction: a REPLICA of the caves where the first drawings by man were discovered. Well, that was quite a waste of time as it was a plastic rock with chalk drawings and extremely inaccurate and deceiving videos to accompany the fake cave...

Santander pre-sunset

Then there was Santander. I swear everything in the North of Spain is precious. I just can't stop saying how beautiful it is, so I'll let the pictures attempt to do justice to our stroll and take-out Chino meal on the sea...


Santander post-sunset

A night and a day of wandering in Bilbao brought Jenny and I to our flight to Dusseldorf....

To be continued...


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