Our last full day in the Picos de Europa and so we needed to plan another hike. We decided to try the one that literally runs from the back of the hotel up to the meadows, providing views of small hamlets in the mountains. I was rather dubious as the hotel map was as comprehensive as the other hikes in that it was basically just a line but this time I couldn’t find anything resembling the route on my phone maps so we’d have to rely on the paper map. Big mistake.
The route up was one of the steepest we have walked and with no trail markers like yesterday. We carefully read the guidance but I felt we were not going anywhere near the right direction. We tried to convince ourselves that particular paths and gates were those referred to but I knew we were not heading in the right direction.
Eventually the track got higher and higher and the views (and butterflies) were really impressive. We reached a point and decided that this would be the halfway point and so turned back and headed down the way we had come. My knees really were playing up and I even tried walking backwards at some points - not really my best idea.
Finally we neared the bottom of the track and we could see the hotel. We also saw a ramshackle wooden sign with faded lettering that pointed to the trail we needed in exactly the opposite direction to where we had walked!! I couldn’t believe it and for a fraction of a second I did consider if we could do the correct walk now but my knees were hurting so much that we decided we had probably walked further anyway so we went back.
The hotel had become very busy as it is Sunday and it is clearly THE place to go in the Picos. We drove back to Potes and and continued to what was supposed to be an outstanding information centre all about the area. Although the building was very impressive unfortunately the contents were not but I was actually rather relieved not to find anything useful that we may have missed out doing.
Back to Potes, another excellent ice cream (mango sorbet this time), bought some postcards and stamps and then headed back to the hotel for our last dinner. It was very good as usual and afterwards we went for a stroll and discovered both the St Bernard’s asleep - snoring and dreaming in the porch. I discovered that they are in fact two girls called Catalina and Breña.
Todays photo is a montage of just some of the spring flowers that we have seen over the past few days.
Off to bed - very tired!
(11,304 footsteps which actually were more the equivalent of 20,000!)
