We woke up in our (deserted) shopping centre to a blue sunny sky as promised in the weather forecast HURRAY! Happy Easter! We had a quick breakfast to get us set up for the day and set off, looking forward to driving in sunshine.
We drove to Lugo on the motorway first to get us into the mountains, then moved onto little yellow and green stripy roads and things really started to perk up. The scenery was fantastic, the weather was beautiful, spring seemed to have sprung overnight and the spanish government had clearly prioritised the building of numerous excellent roads in the middle of nowhere. We went over mountain passes and along lush valleys, saw wind farms, burnt hillsides and whole mountainsides covered in giant purple-flowering heather. The soil was rich and brown (nothing like burgess hill) and big and small corners of land everywhere had been ploughed up ready for action. There were already fruit trees covered in pink and white blossom, and a strange cabbage in sticks crop. Most old farmhouses had a kind of little barn on legs instead of part of the second storey, presumably to store grain, so they must grow that too (see pics)
As well as the weather being better, the availability of coffee was much improved even though out was Easter Sunday. We stopped in a couple of cafes, had drinks and of course snackettes. P was engaged in a friendly man conversation (Madrid? Barcelona? No? Moto GP? Pedrosa? Si si etc) and at another cafe lots of bikers eyed up each other's equipment.
We toyed with the idea of getting all the way into the picos ready for an early start, but we had been on the go for over 6 hours and had achy bottoms so decided to stop in Oviedo. We cruised round for a bit, then ended up staying in the quite posh 4* 'tryp' hotel for a bargain 60€. P drove down to floor -3 looking for the hotel's parking places, but it turned out that they owned then all, just that the hotel was pretty much deserted.
Oviedo is helpfully designed with a Wine Street and a Cider Street. We started with the wine which was near the hotel (and somehow familiar territory). We had yet more snacks, which brings the grand total of actual meals purchased in Spain to 1. In the interests of cultural research we moved on to Cider Street (the Asturia region is famous for its siderias) but didn't like it that much. The pouring style was impressive though - they pour from a great height into your glass without looking (see pic).
Then we had had enough and after a brief map reading crisis went back to the marie celeste for a good night's sleep, ready to make an early start on our last day.
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