Llanes to Ribadesella

After a rest day in Llanes exploring this lovely coastal city, we set off on the longest day we have planned on this Camino. We have a 30 km day ahead of us and neither of us is particularly looking forward to it, our preferred km range is between 15-20 km. Anyway, we leave our lovely accommodation at 7:00 am, it is dark and we don’t have headlamps (we sent them back home thinking we wouldn’t need them 🤦‍♀️). It doesn’t take our eyes long to adjust, we start our walk in Llanes and soon enough have reached the outskirts of town, this first stretch has small villages spaced around 3 km apart which helps to make us feel like we are making progress. Llanes was still sleeping when we left this morning so we haven’t eaten or had our morning coffee, we keep our eyes peeled for an open bar, but it won’t be until around 11:00 am that we will come across one, when we do, we sit for a solid half hour enjoying this morning ritual. The weather is changeable, our rain jackets are on and off regularly throughout the day. We have a bit of everything on our walk today from beautiful coastal walking along the headlands, to forest and rural dirt roads and paths with ascents and descents. We have noticed that the Camino path in Asturias is not as well marked as in previous regions, the markers are less frequent and it is pretty easy to get off trail, today is not the day we want to be adding more distance to our walk though, so we are vigilant at checking our maps and watching for markers. We stop at a supermacado in Nueva and buy some rolls, ham and cheese, we will find a place to have a little picnic on the way today. We end up walking around 3 km before we come across a spot where we can sit, make and eat our lunch, it’s someone’s land right beside the dirt road we are walking on, but it’s past 1:00 pm and we are both buggered, hungry and our bodies are feeling broken. We throw our rain jackets on the ground and fall onto them, we make our lunch, remove our shoes and socks and try to find a comfortable position to rest in, the whole time wondering how we are going to get up and keep walking for the next few hours…. But it’s amazing what food, water, rest and a little foot massage will do for you, we have taken our time and we are both ready to tackle the final 9 kms of our day. We finally get into Ribadesella feeling broken, it is very hot now, we are unable to book into our accommodation until 5:00 pm, so we wait out our time at a bar just down the road from where we are staying, there is a park right near the bar with lots of families enjoying the green space with their kids, it’s lovely to watch and hear all the laughter and fun times these families are having together. We finally check into our apartment, we shower, go to the supermacado to get food for dinner, then we eat and call it a night, we are both exhausted and in need of rest. Fingers crossed we are able to get out of bed in the morning and continue walking….Read more