Asturias Travel: A Bicycling
Adventure on the Bear Trail
After a nice day of discoveries in Oviedo
and Gijón,
a grey sky and drizzly weather greeted me on this
late May morning, and I enjoyed my hearty breakfast
buffet at the Barcelo Oviedo Cervantes Hotel before
I was scheduled to head off on a bicycling adventure
to explore some of the amazing outdoor opportunities
that travel in Asturias has to offer. Punctually
at 9:30 am I met my guides for today: Tito Conde
who runs an outdoor adventure company called www.deporventura.com,
and his friend Estefania, an English and gym teacher
who Tito brought along to facilitate language communication.
Fortunately, my Spanish is pretty passable so we
had no major communications problems.
Estefania and Tito, my local guides
All three of us headed off in Tito’s van
to the start our bicycling tour of the “Senda
del Oso”, the Bear Trail, which was roughly
30 minutes from Oviedo, the capital of Asturias.
Along the way we stopped in a small village where
Tito pointed out a “lavadero”, a traditional
stone basin that was used for washing laundry manually
in the early part of the 20th century. From the
inscription we could see that this open-air laundry-washing
facility was actually donated by a local doctor
Antonio Fernandez for the benefit of the village.
The "lavadero", a public laundry facility
for washing clothes by hand
On the other side of the brook, Tito pointed out
a so-called “horreo”, a wooden grain
storage building on stilts that would protect the
harvest from mice and other animals. The elevated
position of this structure also provides protection
against any humidity from the ground. These “horreos”
are typical of Asturias and can be found all over
this northern Spanish province.
A typical Asturian "horreo", used to store
grains
A few minutes later we were ready to start biking.
We were greeted by some colleagues of Tito’s,
a young man by the name of Alex from a company called
www.mov-e.es which produces pedal-assisted electric
bikes, as well as Ana Fernández-Villasuso
from Turismo Asturias who was going to accompany
us as our local tourism expert. We hopped on the
bikes and cycled up the hill to get on the Bear
Trail, a former railway line that has been turned
into a recreational path. This was my first time
on an electrical bicycle and it was absolutely incredible
how easy it was to tackle the incline, it required
no effort at all!
The whole crew is getting ready for the ride
As we started cycling on this 22 kilometre long
trail, Alex and I talked about electrical bicycles
and the fact that Spain is a leader in renewable
energy. The bicycles from mov-e are manufactured
in Spain and the motor is made by Panasonic. All
the bicycles are assembled right here in Asturias
and mov-e is now getting ready to produce electrical
vehicles as well. According to Alex, many hotels
and tourism organizations are now buying these types
of bicycles to rent them to tourists. Asturias is
a very mountainous region, but in the central part
of Asturias it is even possible to use electric
bicycles for daily commuting. The future is bright
for mov-e and for renewable energy in Spain.
The mov-e bike: pedalling uphill was a breeze!
As we were pedalling I started chatting with Ana
who explained the main sights of the Bear Trail
to me. The starting point of our bicycling route
was right next to a large enclosure that holds three
brown bears, two females named Tola and Paca, and
a male by the name of Furaco. Cantabrian bears are
indigenous to Northern Spain and Furaco was brought
here from the mountains of Cantabria. There was
hope at some point that Furaco and Tola would have
some offspring because they started to take a liking
to one another, but so far their courtship has not
produced any baby cubs.
One of the bears on the Bear Trail
Cow bells were ringing all around us as we cycled
along the Bear Trail. Asturias is particularly famous
for its milk production, and cows are still grazing
free on the slopes of the steep mountains here.
Ana and I started talking about travel opportunities
in Asturias. The province’s slogan “Asturias
– Paraíso Natural” (Natural Paradise)
is a perfect way of describing this mountainous
province. The south of Asturias is dominated by
the Picos de Europa (literally translated: the “Peaks
of Europe”) mountain chain which are now protected
by the Picos de Europa National Park which is shared
by three autonomous Spanish communities: Asturias,
Cantabria and León. Indeed, 33% of Asturias’
surface area is protected nature area. Just a short
distance from the Atlantic coastline, the mountains
stretch up to a height of over 2,600 metres (8,500
feet).
Landscape on the Bear Trail
Outdoor adventurers love Asturias because it offers
great opportunities for hiking, bicycling, mountaineering,
caving and many other nature activities. Canoeing,
kayaking and canyoning are also popular activities
on the rivers that cross this mountainous terrain.
Many wild animals still live in this mostly untouched
region: wolves, chamois, eagles, wild boars and
bears are among the species that call this are home.
Ana talks with Estefania, in the background an "horreo"
Then Ana and I touched on the subject of Asturian
cuisine. After working out in the wild outdoors,
hikers can satisfy their hunger with hearty Asturian
stews. The most famous regional dish is “fabada”,
a savoury stew made of white beans with ham, blood
sausage and Spanish chorizo sausage. “Pote”
is another thick stew that is also made with beans
and kale. “Sidra” (fermented apple cider)
is the drink of choice in Asturias. And rice pudding
provides a sweet-tasting ending to many Asturian
meals. These tasty dishes will definitely stick
to your ribs and give you energy for a long hard
day in the mountains.
Estefania exits from one of the many railroad tunnels
on the Bear Trail
As we cycled through some of the former railway
tunnels on the Bear Trail Ana also touched on the
cultural travel opportunities of Asturias. Asturias
has been inhabited for many thousands of years.
Prehistoric caves with paleolitic cave paintings
that are up to 24,000 years old can be visited in
Ribadesella, close to the Atlantic coast. About
2000 years ago, the ancient Romans also left their
traces here. And the Spanish Reconquest began in
Asturias in 722 when Don Pelayo won a critical battle
over the Muslim Moors in the famous Battle of Covadonga,
founding the Asturian kingdom and establishing the
beginnings of Christianity in Spain.
Our support team follows us on the road
One of the main attractions in Asturias are its
amazing Pre-Romanesque monuments; churches such
as Santa Maria del Naranco or San Miguel de Lillo,
both near Oviedo, were built around 848 AD and are
precursors of Romanesque architecture that would
not be found in other areas until 200 years later.
Based on their architectural and historic significance,
these structures have been designated as UNESCO
World Heritage Sites and draw many thousands of
tourists every year.
Santa Maria del Naranco - gorgeous Pre-Romanesque
architecture
Ana continued to explain that medieval art is also
well represented, for example, in the Cathedral
of Oviedo and many other church buildings throughout
Asturias. The big Asturian cities of Oviedo, Gijón,
Aviles and others offer tremendous cultural programs,
including music, opera, galleries and theatre. Among
the most famous recent contributions to Asturian
culture are the Prince of Asturias Awards that have
been awarded every year since 1981 for outstanding
achievements in such fields as art, communications
and humanities, international cooperation, literature,
social sciences, sports, technical and scientific
research and human understanding. Over the years
award winners have included Nelson Mandela, Al Gore,
Bill Gates, Woody Allen, Bob Dylan, Pedro Almodóvar,
Rafael Nadal and many others.
Beautiful architecture in Oviedo
Cycling along the scenic Senda del Oso, Ana and
I also discussed another popular type of travel
in Asturias: pilgrimage travel. The famous Camino
de Santiago (the Way of St. James), one of Europe’s
most important pilgrimage routes, has experienced
a tremendous resurgence in recent years. It now
attracts a new wave of pilgrims, many of them modern
professionals who have been burnt out in the corporate
rat race and need to get away from it all to reflect
and put their lives in perspective.
Oviedo City Hall
The most popular and well-known route of the Camino
is the “Camino Francés” (The
French Way) that comes from Paris via Arles and
Saint Gilles and goes south of the Cantabrian mountain
chain through Pamplona, Burgos and León to
its end point in Santiago de Compostela. A less
well known is the Northern or Coastal Route (the
Camino del Norte, or Camino de la Costa) that runs
along the Atlantic coastline and cuts right through
Asturias.
Asturian coastline
This route of the Camino is much less crowded that
the Camino Francés and is also equipped with
many pilgrims’ hostels. The pilgrims’
hostels provide extremely basic accommodation at
very low rates (about 3 to 7 Euros a night) to any
of the pilgrims that carry the credencial, the pilgrim’s
passport. Some of the hostels are funded by donations
and are completely free of charge.
Flowers at the Mercado del Fontán in Oviedo
Many retired people walk to Santiago de Compostela
on the French Way and return on the Northern Route.
Nowadays, the Way of Saint James is no longer reserved
to pilgrims traveling on foot, there are now various
companies offering tours on the Camino by horse
and by bicycle. Ana explained that on foot the Spanish
pilgrimage to Santiago takes about one month and
by bicycle it takes about 15 days. Pilgrims have
to complete at least 100 km of the route, while
bicyclists need to cover at least 200 km to qualify
as bona fide pilgrims.
Amazing landscapes on the Bear Trail
At a particularly scenic part of the Bear Trail
we stopped to admire two tall rock walls that formed
a gorge, with the river below. From here we also
looked ahead to a couple of the former railway tunnels
that were part of this train route. A few minutes
away we stopped in a small local village called
Caranga where we were going to grab lunch. Unfortunately
the restaurant called La Casa al Cura was closed
on this Wednesday, so we had to delay our meal.
The village of Caranga
Our
next adventure would be a drive into the mountains
in Tito’s van to show me some of the Asturian
landscapes from high above.