I spent the day flitting between Castille & Leon and Cantabria after heading into the mountains behind Bilbao, leaving Basque Country for now. The destination was in another region, Asturias, at Oviedo.The mountains that rise up are in places called Picos de Europa which is a national park. There are a series of mountain passes which define the border between the two regions and I chose one as a starting point for a run along the mountains to Oviedo. Although the road did get down to the ocean in places. The mountain scenery is awesome but you may have to take my word for it. The problem is most of the time there is almost nothing familiar to help give scale. The Portillo de la Sia is about the same height as Ben Nevis and it is quite a drive up. Similarly the amazing Collado del Ason is impossible to grasp from a photo as it is about 1000 ft deep and the waterfall in the picture I’ve included is a drop of about 200 ft. There are other sights along the way which are more photogenic and I have started with one of those. This is the Basilica of Santa María la Real de Covadonga in the Picos de Europa national park. Another interesting building is the Palace of Sobrellano just outside Santander. The mountains tend to encourage roads that follow valleys so wend back and forth from the mountains to the sea. So now the mountains starting at the Portillo, followed by the Collado and then another the Mirador de Alisas with its view down to Santander. I note that in places I saw more bicycles than cars. Now in Asturias I have encountered strange mounted wooden structure. I have not investigated them so no explanation, just a couple of snaps.

For orientation there is an outline map is here.