Picos de Europa - Peaks of Europe

The Picos de Europa are made up of three limestone massifs reaching 2648m and straddle southwest Cantabria (from where we visited), northern Castilla y Leon and southeast Asturias. They offer some of the best walking country and scenery in Spain.

We took the motorbike and travelled through spectacular mountain roads and villages to Fuente Dé, where we took a cable car 753m up to the sheer southern wall of the Picos' central massif at 1823m. Our Lonely Planet guide told us that from here, there was an easy 3.5km one-hour walk to the Hotel Aliva where we would find refreshments. Sounded like a good plan and so off we set, mostly downhill. We reached the hotel only to find it was closed down, so there was nothing for it but to turn around, at which point we realised just how far down we had come. The hike back uphill was a bit of a killer but we made it and could say that we had really hiked the Picos. We were reminded of our trip still several days later as we could hardly walk! But, as our nephew George pointed out, at least we don't have any stairs in the motorhome to negotiate!Read more