Asturias

View from the hotel, looking out to the Picos in the distance

We had an awesome holiday over Easter, we headed across to Asturias which is on the north coast of Spain, almost at the north western corner really, on the Bay of Biscay.  Probably it's most famous attribute is the Picos de Europa national park, which basically means the peaks of Europe.  Apparently for returning sailors this would be their first sight of home.  It is an incredible mountain range, rising basically from sea level to 2,600m.  When we were the there the high peaks were still covered in snow.

Dave and Cangas, with the foothills in the distance

We went there mainly to do a bit of walking in this national park.  A tour company, Inntravel, organised everything for us, or rather sent us all the maps, walking instructions, directions and booked everything.  I would highly recommend them if you are short on time for this sort of planning, or you don't speak the language, it's still very much self-guided, they just provide you with a range of options.  It was one of the best holidays I think I have ever had.  There were hardly any other non-Spanish people there, obviously this area is really popular with the Spanish, but I think I only heard maybe 2 other people speak English the whole time we were there.  We would be walking around in the hills and other walkers/bikers would stop to ask us directions and we had to keep telling them we didn't speak Spanish.  A lot of the people we met didn't speak English either, which was really different from Barcelona, which was the last place we went in Spain.

View from the hotel lounge

I think it's rare in Spain to find somewhere so nice that hasn't been completely destroyed by the English, I think they have a bit of a reputation of turning these beautiful Spanish coastal areas into night clubs.  But they obviously haven't discovered this area yet, or rather I don't think the weather is as good as it is on other parts of the coast.  If you think about it, there's this tiny strip of land along the coast, with 2,000m high mountains behind and the Atlantic Ocean in front, sounds like a recipe for some pretty wet days to me.

Whilst we were there we also visited Cangas which was a town about 15 minutes drive away.  We ended up driving through this town twice trying to find a car park, it seemed to be one of the more touristy spots in this area.  This is where Pelayo set up his court.  Pelayo was an 8th century visgoth who created the Kingdom of Asturias, so probably a pretty popular character around these parts.  He is also credited with beginning the reconquest, where Christians began taking back the Spanish peninsular from the Moors. 

Dave and a Romanesque bridge in Cangas

The rest of this post is going to be all about food.  I was expecting that the holiday was going to be pretty strenuous, I did not expect the food to be so good, my tummy was literally aching after every meal! 

View from the restaurant

When we booked the holiday inntravel mentioned there were a couple of Michelin star rated restaurants near the hotel we were staying at.  I've never eaten at a place with any Michelin stars, so I thought why not, being in the north coast of Spain it wasn't ridiculously expensive, say like Tetsuya's is, less than 100 euro per person (including wine).  So we ended up going to a 2* place, Casa Marcial, which is in what used to be the family home, a kilometre further up the mountain from our hotel.  It was really good, not some place you would go every week, but for a special night on a wonderful holiday it really fit the bill.

Dave inside the deserted restaurant

The hotel had booked for us, we asked for an early slot and 9pm was the earliest we could get.  We turn up there, driving past the herds of cows all with individual cow bells, and the staff are still eating their own dinner.  We are the first people there by an awfully long time.  Unfortunately the English-speaking staff member had a day off that night, but the remaining staff were amazing, they translated the menu for us and wrote everything down.  They couldn't have been more wonderful.

I was sitting there in this completely empty restaurant trying to guess when the rest of the guests would turn up.  I thought between 9:30pm and 10pm, there's no way people can eat later than that.  Then right on 9:30 another couple turned up, and I was thinking ah ha, we're not that much earlier than the Spanish to dinner.  Turns out the other couple was also English.  The rest of the restaurant didn't fill up until after 10pm.  And then everyone seemed to arrive within about a fifteen minute window of 10:15pm.

Skin of cod with lentils - so deliciously crunchy

Bread with hazelnut cream, olives, salmon and mushroom

It did make me wonder what a typical day is for the Spanish, they didn't seem to get up that much later, though perhaps they did start their walks a few hours after we would.  But I couldn't see where they would fit in this mythical siesta.

Anyway, the dinner was fantastic, even though the majority was eaten in a completely deserted restaurant.  We went for their degustation menu which was 11 courses plus bread.  Luckily we had been for a 24km walk earlier that day.  Being so close to the coast there was a lot of seafood on the menu, some of which I'd never eaten before.  We started with these little aperitifs which were 4 little balls of deliciousness.  I didn't take photos of all my courses, partly because I felt a bit weird being the only people in the restaurant and secondly because I didn't bring my camera. 

Overall the service was fantastic and the food was amazing.  What was the most stand-out point for me was the use of texture in every dish.  You know when you watch those silly reality tv cooking shows and one of the things they are always going on about is the clever use of texture, and you're thinking, yeah whatever.  But this restaurant was a revelation for me, you really can use texture cleverly and have it really improve the dish.  It was always going to taste nice, everything we ate there, but the different textures in every bite took it to another level.

Sea urchin - where have you been all my life?

The stand out dishes for me were the sea urchin, I've never had one before, and now I wonder, if they taste that delicious why have I never been introduced before.  There was also a panacotta of celery and cucumber, which was incredibly refreshing and just set the mouth up for more.  I also had limpets for the first time, those are the weird barnacle/shell things you see covering the rocks at the seaside.  We had them all over the place in Darwin, I never knew they were edible.  If you are ever in the region I cannot recommend this place enough, it's in this wonderful setting, the staff are fantastic, and the food is really something else.  In fact I think the chef has opened a restaurant in London, so I think I'll definitely have to try that at some point.

Funny sheep at the hotel/farm with the Picos in the distance

Enjoying a cider at the hotel

The hotel we were staying at was also, or rather mainly, a fully organic, permaculture farm, growing a whole stack of different animals and vegetables/fruits.  Every night there would be a different set meal and we had that on the other nights.  This was on the other scale from the Casa Marcial, still completely delicious, and again I was in pain at the end of every dinner, but just really simple, rustic food.

The majority of it would always come from their own farm.  We had 3 bottles of wine in 3 nights over the holiday, and for people who know us, that's a bit of a binge, but we just couldn't get enough! This region also is famous for it's cider, again completely delicious.  Do these people not know how to make bad tasting victuals?  The cider is really different to the sickeningly sweet cider you are probably used to, it's much drier, and comes in a wine bottle, but oh so refreshing.