Between the Atlantic coast and the Picos de Europa mountains, deepest Asturias is a place that few know. But it is one that rewards those who linger with wildflowers, eucalyptus forests and the dreamy clang of cowbells in a distant field.
I am walking a loop around El Gran Sueño (“the big dream”), my B&B for the next two nights, and have borrowed Carson, a Brittany spaniel belonging to the owners, Dave and Javi, who swapped Brighton in East Sussex for this bucolic life.
Carson has spent the morning haring off across meadows and along sheep tracks before returning panting with excitement, as though desperate to tell me of the joys that lie ahead in this part of Spain.
“Sleepy” doesn’t cover it here in El Caspiu. This is the sort of place where you arrive with plans aplenty only to find you can’t rouse yourself from the terrace — and the astounding view. But rouse you must because on your doorstep is one of the country’s most dramatic landscapes, the Picos de Europa, a dense mountain range designated as Spain’s first national park in 1918.
It’s only a 35-minute drive from El Gran Sueño to Cangas de Onís, the park’s entry point. I reach Lake Ercina around lunchtime. From here a short walk up the ridge brings me to Mirador Entrelagos, a high point that has me spinning around, trying to take in a panorama that packs in glittering placid waters, razor-edged snow-capped peaks and bizarrely British-looking grassland. I unwrap my sandwich and sit and stare.
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It’s not just the mountains that El Gran Sueño gives easy access to. The coast is also a short drive away, and the next day I make for the Atlantic — and a beach that is undoubtedly one of Spain’s best. Playa de Rodiles is a colossal swathe of golden sands that belongs to those who seek a wind-whipped dune to perch on and an empty expanse to wander. I join them — there are maybe six — in silent reverie, pushing my toes into sand made glossy by the retreating ocean.
This coastline is known for its excellent seafood, so I leave the beach at lunchtime for Tazones and the seafront terrace of El Rompeolas. I take a seat and pin down the tablecloth with a menu and a glass of local cider — this is sidra, and it’s taken very seriously indeed. The person pouring (the escanciador) is a sure-handed professional who will lift the bottle above their head as the liquid falls into your glass.
Filling up on food now seems wise, so I order the clams and the prawns before moving on to the fish of the day. This is hake (in Asturias it most often is) and has a texture so buttery that it falls apart under my fork. Asturias isn’t known for its food — but it should be.
I am heavy-hearted leaving my Asturian home from home the next day, but I’m pushing on westwards, to a seafood lunch in the fishing village of Cudillero. Here terracotta roofs pattern the hillside and converge around the harbour, where restaurants tempt passing tourists with blackboards listing the catch of the day. I take a table on the waterside at La Taberna del Puerto and order grilled langoustines, clams and a dish of chorizo cooked in sidra.
I eat quickly because I have an appointment with a beach that has long been on my wish list. Playa de las Catedrales is just across the border in Galicia, and I time my journey to be sure that I am here at the lowest possible tide. It is only as the sea retreats that what appears to be just another sandy swimming spot emerges as one of Spain’s most dramatic shorelines. Here cone-shaped arches march in formation, each one framing the next. The name of this beach couldn’t be more appropriate — a nod to nature’s divine architecture.
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Back on the road I steer southwards and on to Casa da Cabaza, a rural B&B in an old farmhouse beside the Embalse de Vilasouto Lake. It is run by Siets and Tariq, who also swapped city life for a slower pace, buying the business in 2016. Two rivers, the Sil and the Miño, converge near by, forming the crux of the Ribeira Sacra wine region, and it is to here that I head first.
I board a boat at the Ponte do Sil and cruise along the river canyon, looking up the steep riverbanks at terraces crafted by human hands over the course of 2,000 years. The Romans started it, but in more recent decades the vines went uncultivated as civil war tore people from their land and economic decline under Franco forced in non-native grape varieties with a higher yield. The dictator was virtually teetotal, seeing no value in wine beyond its use in church, and ordered white vines to be ripped up and the country’s wine industry to focus entirely on reds, and on quantity over quality. There has been a renaissance in the past 20 years, though, and local grapes such as godello and mencia are flourishing.
From the boat we can see the vines of Adega Algueira, my venue for lunch and a tasting that spans several grape varieties. The diversity is enticing, and the godello blended with Galicia’s albariño matches my octopus beautifully. Wines from here are expensive — those vines are all picked by hand — but worth it.
The rivers make for fertile land, and back at Casa da Cabaza, Siets cooks a dinner of vegetable lasagne made with produce from the garden and tempts me with cheeses from their neighbour, José, along with homebaked sourdough and honey — everything here is hyperlocal, and vegetarian too.
On my final day in Galicia I go eastwards and upwards, into the Serra do Courel, a mountain range only slightly lower than the Picos but less well known outside Spain. It is spectacular — and so quiet. I swing the car around hairpin bends on precipitous slopes that reach up through purple heather to a clear blue sky.
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After pulling over I find a short, steep path leading upwards amid the peaks. A lung-busting few minutes’ walk brings me to Castro da Torre — its series of squat, slate walls all that remains of a Roman village built for goldminers in the 1st century. I sit a while on what I imagine would once have been somebody’s front step and watch lizards darting past.
The Courel mountains are home to Galicia’s last brown bears, but the wildlife I encounter is somewhat smaller. I follow neon-yellow butterflies through the woods at the River Lor, picking my way along a rocky path to reach a tiny freshwater beach. In Seceda I find lambs bleating in a stable — the only sound to pierce the silence of this old village. But it is on the drive back that I have the best wildlife encounter of the week.
Pulling the car around yet another tight corner, I am dreamily contemplating what might be for dinner when a bobbing white bottom catches my attention; as quick as a flash it moves upwards, vaulting up the hillside — a roe deer. It stops and turns back to face me with the same exultant look that Carson had given me just a few days before.
Helen Ochyra was a guest of Further Afield. Three nights’ B&B for two with a three-course dinner at El Gran Sueño from £380 and three nights’ B&B for two with a tapas dinner at Casa da Cabaza from £220 (furtherafield.com). Fly to Asturias
