The papers were full of it, the news on TV said that fifty provinces in Spain were on High Alert.
"Xynthia will hit Asturias today" according to El Comercio, yesterday.

"The principality ask citizens to take measures to protect themselves before the arrival of the cyclone"

What measures are these, we asked? Well, close your windows, move your pot plants and pull your shutters down. Oh and we're not going to do any rubbish collection so that we don't have empty bins flying round. Oh and don't go out in your car... and look at the red and yellow alerts... look! They're Red! And Yellow!

They forecast 160km/h winds. We cancelled our plan to go to Gijón with Cova and Julio and try out a certain Mexican restaurant, which we had been looking forward to...

Instead we met at La Más Barata for some rice (which wasn't bad (for which read bloomin' gorgeous), chipirones (baby squid) and smoked cheese... which both Julio and I plumped for and devoured). Mexican food will have to wait.

All day on the news they were tracking the storm, which actually was causing severe damage almost everywhere else in the North of Spain. In Oviedo, it was a bit breezy. Fresh, you might say, a blowy evening in Greetland...

The storm blew over and upset the forecast for today too, which had been sunshine and showers, lots of showers. We woke up early to go out with the walking group and it was blue sky and a light breeze. That seemed to be it as far as the weather went. We were walking in Teverga, up to 1760m, so in snow for most of the walk (mud for the rest). Beautiful.


Stunning views, snowy ridge walk, sunshine, cup o' tea at the top. You could not ask for more.

We finished in San Martín, taking over a hotel bar as we all had our sarnies. Once again I was struck by how 'Irish' the Asturians can be as Julio (not the same one) and Andrés argued over who was going to pay for what. I'd messed things up by paying for the wine, Julio had snuck in and paid for his coffee and some spirits which left Andrés complaining that there was nothing left for him to pay for 'except the champagne' until we kindly offered to let him buy us another round of spirits... a selfless act which led to Liz sleeping all the way home on the bus.

Labels: asturias, walking, weather

  ¶ 7:06 PM 0 comments

  After skiing on Saturday (along with the rest of the entire world, it seemed, thanks to the closure of the two other ski resorts in this neck of the woods... far too many people, low visibility and a ton of snowboarders made for an entertaining morning) and finally getting the internet sorted in the house) we had a fairly lazy day on Sunday. At six we decided to go for a stroll, taking cameras, and seeing what we could see.

Eventually we wound up on la losa (the slab), where there are some modern looking cubist flats built on a big slab over the railway lines. Large numbers of older folk were strolling, showing some fine suits, polished canes and enough fur keep the whole of Leeds warm.

At the bottom of one of these cubes (they actually look pretty good all lined up) there is a chocolate shop called Valor. Valor do some of the best chocolate there is, hot chocolate, which I never used to like because it was milk and cocoa powder (an abomination). This is more like chocolate, but melted. Ahhh.

Valor is decorated in a very traditional style, in contrast to its surroundings. Inside it's marble and cane backed chairs and every table full of chatting folk all tucking in to chocolate and churros.

Rather bad for you if you eat them too often, but every now and again, rather fine.

Labels: asturias, food

  ¶ 10:58 PM 1 comments