Wednesday, October 21, 2009

One of our coastal walks



We are lucky that our house is very near the Oriental Coast of Asturias, a well known stretch of the asturian coast that is famous both for its numerous sandy beaches and its dramatic limestone cliffs, over 50km of coast stretching from the boundary between Asturias with Cantabria in the east to Ribadesella further west, Ribadesella is the municipal district where we live. If you continue along the coast from Ribadesella, further west, you will enjoy many long sandy beaches but the cliffs are not as impressive.
We have always enjoyed walking and from La Pasera there are several walks that we can choose from that will take us along the coast.
One of our favourite walks takes us to a bay where the Guadamia river meets the sea, where there is a nice picnic area, a lovely sandy (but tidal) beach, excellent views of the mountains, the cliffs and the coast. Sometimes we walk there following the quiet country lanes whilst other times we walk through our village and pass the little chapel to a path that will lead us to the spectacular cliffs and eventually to the picnic area were we can sit and enjoy the views. It is always a pleasant and enjoyable experience to walk to Guadamia whether you do so along the cliffs or the lanes. Sometimes when we conicide with low tides we walk along the beach and river banks where we occasionally see a kingfisher, quite often you just notice its bright blue plumage as it flies along the river. In Summer we sometimes take a towel and go for a swim in the sea before we return home.
The views of the sea, the cliffs and the mountains are always impressive. Today we are having rough seas and we decided to walk up to the coast and enjoyed watching the strong sea crashing againts the cliffs with the waves coming over the cliffs. Today we also had spectacular Bufones, these are plumes or blow holes of sea water vapour coming up the ground, through fissures in the limestone - mostly when the rough seas coincide with the autumn and Spring high incoming tides. You can also hear the noise that the water and wind make as it rushes through the numerous bufones near Guadamia. We can hear them at night breathing like a distant dragon. In a different blog entry I will tell you of another of our local walks further west towards Ribadesella that takes us to The Cliffs of Hell.

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