Monday, March 24, 2025
Kike had offered to take us on a couple of drives this week to some of his favorite spots along the Costa Verde.
Today we headed to the East of Gijón. This coming Wednesday we'll head to the west of our home city.
Our eight hour round trip journey did indeed have lots of interesting stopping points despite the overcast, foggy and decidedly wet weather. We also had a solid mid-day snack and an amazing lunch thrown into the mix.
As one would suspect, we talked a lot about the future of the Mariners' project after yesterday's loss. We exchanged a lot of ideas to mull over and share with the team at some future date.
On to today's excursion to the East . . .
First stop, the village of Villaviciosa
that will soon host a series of traditional,
lavish Holy Week processions
Kike knew a good spot in this Sidra producing mecca for a light snack and I must say that the fried cheese and tomato pintxo was outstanding as was the complimentary mini-pintxo of tortilla de chorizo. The café con leches were all up to par as well.
In wandering about Villaviciosa
we stumbled upon a jewelry store
Laurie has now added a delicate silver Cross of Asturias to her vast collection of shiny, sparkling trinkets.
The local economy now safe from free-falling, we moved on to the seaside town of Lastres.
Mirador San Roque atop the bluff . . .
. . . is a viewpoint overlooking . . .
. . . Lastres which seems to be
tumbling towards the Sea of Cantabria
Of course the Mirador de San Roque
has a chapel to seek Divine Guidance
The next stop was in Colunga to visit
the Jurassic Museum of Asturias
Closed on Mondays and Tuesdays. DRAT!
This is as close as we could get but not to worry, given the vast amount of Jurassic Age dinosaurs' findings in Asturias, Kike had an Ace up his sleeve for just such an eventuality.
At the end of about a 600 meter
walk along the shoreline to the right,
our dinosaur hunting would bear fruit
A peaceful rio leading into the sea
at La Playa de la Griega
At the end of our trek we would find
dinosaur footprint fossils dating from
somewhere between 145 million and
201 million years ago!
We were promised fossil footprints of both a Theropod, seen on the top left of this illustration, and of a much larger Sauropod on the bottom right.
Along the way to fossils we saw
not quite as ancient ruins . . .
. . . the first flowers of Spring . . .
. . . a different view of
La Playa de la Griega . . .
. . . the roiling Sea of Cantabria
and then, there they were . . .
The distinctive three toed fossil
footprint of a Theropod!
Not overly big compared
to Laurie's foot
The ENORMOUS fossil footprint
of a Sauropod
It was MASSIVE compared to my foot!
We were both impressed by what we saw and were amazed about nature's ability to preserve such valuable clues to our shared, long ago past.
On the way back to the car, Laurie got
intrigued by this strange looking goose
I got more intrigued when Kike mentioned that he had a hidden spot for lunch in the village of Vidiago, population 100 hardy souls.
Entering the Sidrería Casa El Rubiu
The rain started falling at a
critical rate as we went inside
As always, everyone inside the sidrería greeted Kike like a long lost brother.
No surprise there.
The dining room was clean, warm,
dry and most importantly served
incredibly delicious food
We opted to let Kike do the ordering and then all share the bounty.
We started with a large plate of about eight different Asturian cheeses starting from mild ones to the hardy Queso de Cabrales which is Spanish bleu cheese on steroids.
Next up was a plate of nine Croquetas, three of jamón, three of fish and three of a milder blend of Queso de Cabarales.
Then a plate of scrambled eggs with langostino and sea urchins blended in was served. Awfully darn tasty if you ask me!
The main dish was once again a Cachopo about the length of my forearm. To review, a Cachopo is a breaded, fried veal filet folded over stuffed with ham and melted cheese served with a mountain of french fries.
Some wine, water and three cafés ended an extremely healthy meal for all of us. Kike had a Coca Cola instead of the wine, as he takes his designated driver duties seriously.
On the road again, it was still raining
A small flock of sheep almost
blocked our paved path down this
seaside hill/camping grounds
Looking GOOD!
A statue of an Indiano
leaving Spain
I had seen this term all over Asturias, including on my favorite café on Gijón's Plaza Mayor, the one with all of the Cuban signs and references in it.
We were now in town Colombres that houses the Fundación Archivo de Indianos - Nuseo de la Emigración.
As it turns out, an Indiano was the term for a Spaniard who had left the Iberian peninsula to search for their fortune in far away Cuba, found it and then returned to Spain, riches in hand.
As a general rule, these recently repatriated Indianos wanted to show off their new found wealth in any way possible.
The term that Indianos seemed to use when buying anything was, ". . . lo más grande que haiga." That translates to ". . . the biggest that there is."
Thus they erected the biggest homes and bought the biggest cars as obvious ways to flaunt their wealth.
Now the Indiano term became much clearer in my mind and spotting old, massive Indiano homes became a breeze.
As for the Museo de la Emigración . . .
. . . it is closed on Mondays
Yet again, DRAT!
On to Ribadesella to the remote, drive through La Cuevona which is an enormous cave.
It was big . . .
. . . really BIG!
Stalactites dripping from
La Cuevona's ceiling
Our car's exit path in the distance
What a really GREAT Monday!
We'll try to do this again on Wednesday but travel to the West of Gijón next time.
Gracias Kike!
The latest Spanish Serie A
standings with records listed
in Win-Tie-Loss order
Thoughts from the net . . .
LOVE IT!
True
Laurie's Mantra?
Time to get back into the American football mode with three final practices this week as our Mariners (1-6) have one last game on Saturday at home against the Osos Rivas (4-3).
They beat us 38-0 in Madrid back on February 15th.
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