Picos de Europas

Not sure what to call today apart from Well!!!
The day was described in the brochure as a 10km walk with 1,150m of descent. Juan said it was around 12km. My fitbit tells me a different story😅. According to it, I've walked over 19km, which will probably be about 18km depending on the length of my stride🙄🤔😂.
We began the day walking through a bit of a meadow, joining a sheep drove after about 15 minutes. It was pretty obvious that not many sheep, or shepherds, had used this track in a while, but it was a lovely meander through some very green countryside. There were a few hairy bits where we had to beat back the brambles and watch our step, but nothing compared to the previous 2 days, although I have the scratches to prove it was a hard day!😂
We'd been told there would be a 'short' ascent of about 15 minutes at the end of the drove, but we just hadn't been told how steep it was 🙄🤬😅. It was, thankfully, a concrete path to the main road towards the village of Treviso, where we'd be enjoying a lunch stop, so it certainly wasn't the slippery surface we'd encountered on either day 1 or 2! A half hour route march along a thankfully level road took us to Treviso to enjoy our packed lunch. I'd ordered a cheese tortilla bocadilla (a large sandwich on crusty, Spanish bread). When I opened my lunch... well, it was a cheese bocadilla - no spread, no nothing, only cheese 🙄😂. I gratefully swapped with one of my walking buddies, who really enjoyed it. I had tortilla which was, to be honest, disappointing 😞 🙄. But a coke zero and a Mars Bar soon put that right!
Treviso is in Cantabria and is one of the places that makes its own cheese, storing it in the cheese caves we'd seen on day 1, so there was a bit of a tasting and, I have to say, it is absolutely amazing 😋😋😋.
Until 1991, Treviso was only served by the track we were going to tackle next. This was the 1,150m descent we'd read about, and was bloomin awful! Anyone wishing to visit a large city, e.g. Santander, had to take themselves off down this track, catch the bus and do their business, return to the track and ascend 1,150m!!! 1991! 33 years ago! Unbelievable and incredible! The local postie only visited a couple of times a week and I'm sure he travelled by mule or something similar! One of the photos shows a wiggle of white lines - that was our route😱🙄😂 - whilst the other shows the track meandering down the mountain.
The track consisted of chunks of limestone, some tiny, some medium sized and some absolutely massive. I only managed to fall over once today - not bad, and no bones were broken 👍, but the sheer concentration we had to put in to staying upright was very tiring!
We were lucky enough to see nesting vultures on the limestone rockface, but they were so difficult to photograph! Nothing will match the splendour of finding a Griffin vulture circling over your head, taking food to its young, born only 2 or 3 weeks ago. Yet another amazing experience.
On our way down, we also found a herd of goats resting on the hillside. They were massive and followed us noisily as we left the valley.
Our walk brought us to a hydro-electric station and then up to the minibus, thank goodness! We were all really tired (see pic of Nick😂) but before we got back to the hotel, we picked up Juan's grandson from school. He's 5 yrs old and very sweet🥰🥰🥰. A mad, raucous evening meal (I wasn't involved, I promise 🙄) has seen me in bed by 9.30pm! Think I might get the painkillers ready for the morning...Read more