Burgos

I left Ribadeo this morning with bright sunshine on the estuary and the neighbouring villages of Figueras and Castropol gleaming in the sun. I headed south into the mountains to explore the roads there. I found a wonderful road that ran high on the side of a valley carved out by the Rio Navia (the AS12). Both the  road and the scenery were magnificent. The landscape looked quite alpine to my eyes. Early on, when I glanced behind me, I caught sight of the valley opening to the sea which was a wonderful sight.

Salí de Ribadeo esta mañana con un sol brillante en el estuario y los pueblos vecinos de Figueras y Castropol resplandecientes bajo el sol. Me dirigí al sur en las montañas para explorar los caminos allí. He encontrado un camino maravilloso que corría a alto en el lado de un valle labrado por el río Navia (AS12). La carretera y el paisaje ambos fueron muy impresionantes. El paisaje parecía bastante alpino a mis ojos. Desde el principio del viaje, cuando miré detrás, cogí vi el valle que se abren al mar que era un espectáculo maravilloso.

The area through which the road passes is clearly more geared towards tourism than some areas I have seen in the mountains although there were no tourists to be seen. The road also passes through numerous little hamlets - often just a couple of houses so there were no annoying holdups for traffic at all. As ever it seems, I saw very little traffic. The occasional farmer working his steeply sloping pasture could be seen.

By the time I reached Grandas and having been thinking about where I should head next, I decided that it was time to cover some distance towards the Pyrenees. I was very tempted to make my way into the Picos de Europa but I reckoned that if I spent time there, there was no way that I would be able to get a proper look at the Pyrenees in the time remaining to me on this trip. So rather reluctantly, I set the GPS to lead me to Burgos. This it did by taking me first south west - still on a magnificent biking road, for a good many miles until it intersected the A6 (Autovia del Noroeste). This section of road coincided with the Camino de Santiago and I saw a number of walkers and cylista obviously making the pilgrimage.

The part of the A6 autovia in Galicia passes through incredibly beautiful scenery which sadly disappears and becomes less interesting as the road drops into Castilla y León. However, there was enough interest and the day didn't get too hot (25 degrees) to allow me to remain reasonably fresh as I travelled East towards Burgos. I ducked off the autovia a couple of times for a bit of variety but came back to it so as not to lose too much time.

I saw mountains both to the north and initially to the south that had snow here and there on the peaks. The mountains in the north certainly included the Picos de Europa but I couldn't pick out the areas I knew with any certainty. I picked my hotel in Burgos almost at random and fortuitously, it proved to be very close to the autovia, so I didn't have to fight any evening rush hour traffic for which I was grateful after the 330 miles covered today.