We decided to move on from Camping Villaviciosa, it is in a pretty location but exploring the locality without a car proved difficult. An ideal place to stop if you have a caravan, less so in a motorhome. There are many campsites on the Costa Verde but most don't open until Easter. Areas autocaravanas, both official and opportunistic are thin on the ground whatever the season. However there was one site open nearby at Ribadesella, so we headed there. The site is quite basic but serviceable. The small resort and fishing port of Ribadesella is less than a kilometre away; we spent a pleasant couple of days here once we got over a slightly shaky start.
Most of the time we have been in Iberia the weather has been in the news, but in a somewhat contradictory way. Some articles concerned how low Spain and Portugal's big inland reservoirs were. So low that hydro-electric stations had suspended power generation with a view to saving water for human consumption and agriculture. Yet at the same time the media was full of stories of local downpours and flooding, and without a doubt from our own experience the weather has been wetter and cooler than we have experienced on previous trips. Perhaps it's the case that there has been lots of rain, but in the wrong places.
Locals too remarked on how wet it had been, including the owner of Camping Ribadesella when he came to help us unstick the moho after we became bogged down on an apparently flat grassy pitch. In fact it does not take much moisture at all for the van's front wheels to start spinning around on wet grass. We carry Milenco plastic treads with us which usually fix the problem. This time neither they nor the extra traction from me, the burly German guy next door and his less than svelte wife pushing from the front could move us an inch; the front wheels simply spun around and made an ever deeper furrow.
It's the only negative thing about the van, the one area where our previous moho was better, built on a Ford Transit chassis, with double wheels at the back and rear wheel drive it didn't simple grind to a halt, mud, sand, steep banks, it went up anything.
Anyway, getting stuck must be a common problem here because the owner had plenty of gravel, a big wheelbarrow and a hefty shovel to hand. He took control, hopped into the drivers seat and we were soon back on tarmac, no worries apart from being a bit mud spattered. He reckoned that they had a very rainy November and the ground had yet to recover. A very amenable and helpful chap, the next time we bumped into him he was busy getting together a load of gear in preparation for cooking paella for 300 hundred people.
Minor crisis over we unloaded the bikes and headed towards the seafront. Ribadesella's setting is spectacular, a big crescent shaped beach runs between two rocky headlands.
The esplanade is lined with modernista style villas and hotels.
Big mountains loom over the town, it reminded me for some reason of Erbalunga in North Corsica.
The historical centre and fishing port lies behind the beach on the eastern bank of estuary of the river Sella. It developed initially as a whaling port. We decided to explore the opposite bank the next day.
One final thing intrigued us, where did all the driftwood come from? The beach next to the river mouth was littered with it, not just branches and twigs but entire tree trunks.
More mysterious still was the way it was the only material on the beach, you would expect the wood to be entangled with other flotsam, bits of fishing gear, plastic waste and general junk.
No, only bone white wood as if it had been placed there deliberately like some kind of latter-day Dada art installation. Of course this couldn't be the case, but how had it occurred naturally?
The next morning we rode back into town and locked our bikes next to the tourist information office. After mooching about beside the fish quay (usual topic of conversation - why do Spanish inshore fishing boats look more neat and tidy than British ones?), we headed along a paved footpath leading to the rock formations on the eastern side of the harbour.
A series of ceramic tiled boards have been erected by the path recounting the history of the town. They were engaging, recreating scenes from the past in cartoon style, part Hergé, part Picasso.
The first one covered pre-history, which it should as the famous caves of Altamira are nearby, and less famous examples prehistoric cave art exist just outside the town. People have lived here for tens of thousands of years, though not quite in the way depicted on the boards.
The Roman period, Middle Ages, Renaissance and the age of Emigration each had an equally entertaining treatment..
The modern period ended with the coming of the railway and the development of the seaside resort in the early twentieth century.
The Civil War was conspicuous by its absence.
After a few minutes mooching about among the rocks by the harbour mouth we decided to find somewhere for lunch.
Asturias is cider country and Ribadesella's quayside is lined with siderias all offering interesting tapas, mostly seafood dishes. In our enthusiasm to find somewhere in a sunny spot somehow we managed to choose a place where the food was mediocre. We consoled ourselves with the thought that it's impossible to make the right call every time.
However, it was not the boring food which will remain in our memory. The waiter was very odd, a bit disheveled and unsteady on his feet and clueless about how to set the table. When the food did arrive he stumbled towards us, plates wobbling precariously. It had the potential to be funny, like Mrs Overall come to life. Actually, it was sad and upsetting, it was difficult know what his issues were, but he was clearly in a bad way.
Maybe this coloured our impression of the town, which, for a small place had a certain grandeur about it, but somewhat faded.
However, as well as fishing, tourism is the place's mainstay and after a long winter and the beginning of the season at Easter still a couple of weeks away, I suppose it is unsurprising that Ribadesella looked less than vibrant.
We reached the main square, I paused to take a picture of a commemorative bust. I had not heard of Augustin de Argüelles, but certainly recalled the famous constitution he wrote in Cadiz in the early years of the nineteenth century.
If you visit the city it's difficult to ignore it, an enormous white marble sculpture in Constitution Square commemorates the document and the short-lived progressive Republic it ushered in. For some reason I find it pleasing when small places engender big, world changing ideas. Of course the French and American constitutions are the ones we tend to think of as precursors of modern democratic political systems, but the Enlightenment produced others, more liberal and progressive than those, but too ahead of their time to prevail. Pasquale Paoli's Corsican constitution of 1755 was one, The Republic of Cadiz was another, developed in 1812, and now I know by whom, Augustin de Argüelles, Ribadesella's most illustrious son. I love trivia!
Where next? We decided to drive a few kilometres east to Asturias most popular holiday spot, Llanes. When we got there we didn't like the area autocaravanas next to the lorry park and the automatic payment system seemed overly complicated.
Onwards! Gill phoned two places near Comillas, it was Saturday, both were full. It probably was not a smart move to try to move at the weekend. We were keeping an eye on the weather too, three more days of sun then back to unsettled conditions throughout the north of Spain and the whole of France.
We decided to keep driving until we reached the Basque country. What about three nights at Zumaia? We like the town and its campsite and it has a regular train to Donastia; what better way to say adiós España than with a pintxos or two?
It was late afternoon by the time we reached the site. There were only a couple of pitches left. "I don't know what's going on!" the woman on reception exclaimed. "Last weekend we were almost empty, now almost full." I suspect we were not the only motorhomers from the north who realised that early spring on the Costa Verde and Costa Vasco was inexplicably sunnier and warmer than in Murcia or Andalucia.
In the last post I said that odd and second rate campsites massively outnumber well run ones. Happily Camping Zumaia is definitely in the minority. Apart from the fact it is situated on a steep hillside everything else about it is excellent. The people who run the place are great too, friendly, welcoming and efficient.
There is a lot to like about Zumaia itself as well. Maybe it is not as picturesque as Ribadesella as the town specialises in ship repair rather than fishing. So even on a Sunday the distant roar of sandblasters on metal and the scream of angle grinders can be heard from the outside tables of quayside bars and cafés. Surely that is a good thing, because it gives the place purpose, a reason to exist.
The place listed on TripAdvisor as having the most innovative pintxos was shut. For 'technical reasons' a notice on the door intimated somewhat intriguingly. We squeezed in at 'Kraken' a few doors down. Most of the tables had been reserved, which is always a good sign.
We wanted a snack rather than lunch. The half portion tostas we ordered were delicious, these, plus a wine for Gill and a small beer for me cost €15.
Even something as simple as a 'toastie' had been made with care. Mine was topped with cheese, mushroom and caramelised onion, the ingredients had been carefully prepared and layered so each flavour came through then mingled. The person who had made it knew how to cook, it hadn't come pre-packaged in cellophane to be bunged into a grill as an afterthought by someone working behind the bar.
A visit to Zumaia has to include the geo-park. In terms of visual appeal the cliffs overlooking the town's beach must be among the most remarkable on the planet.
The perfection of the wavy strata, and the saw-tooth effect of the jagged outcrops looks far too regular to have simply happened by accident, but it did.
Even though it was high tide and most of the horizontal strata were underwater, nevertheless it was a magnificent sight, and somewhere we will never tire of returning to.
The sense of pride in the region is palpable, mainly because the inhabitants don't regard Eskuadi as a region at all. Wales and Scotland are not regions of Great Britain, the Basque country politically may be a region of Spain, but not culturally.
It is a whole different country.
No comments:
Post a Comment