Distance: 28.1km (34.5km), time spent: 8:06 (10:41).
Weather: Sunny and a clear sky.
I slept like a rock in the night, but forces myself eagerly up early in the morning. After a breakfast in the only café I could find that was open, I am on my way around 7:13 in the morning. Already, I have heard the unmistakably sound of walking poles against paved road. It is a clear sky above me when I leave Villaviciosa, but since it is still early in the morning, the sun has not begun to warm yet.
Farmers herding a small flock of cows through the streets in Amandi just outside Villaviciosa early in the morning.
Pleasant culture landscape between Villaviciosa and Valdedios, verdant hills and meadows.
As soon as the yellow arrows has guided me out of the town, the path goes through a rolling and verdant landscape where I pass several small (very small really) places. Just before I come to Casquita, where the caminos separates and one way goes towards Gijon continuing on the del Norte and the other goes to Oviedo and my primitive way, I meet Axel from Germany. He has walked from Irun alongside the coast, but are now heading inland on the same way as I am. We walk together towards Valdedios.
Cultural landscape in Asturias.
The small oratory of San Salvador at the monastery of Santa Maria de Valdedios.
In the horizon, there are green and rolling hills, flanked by a cultural landscape. We are for a short while overtaken by a man from the Czech Republic who had gone bankrupt and lost everything he owned, and after that, he had just as well started walking from Prague. Along the way, he had spent the nights in his tent and whatever he could find of places, as well as the occasional horreo (small houses used to dry corn and grains that also keeps out the vermin). Now he had received a 'job opportunity' as he called it, putting up way markers on the Jerusalem way (the pilgrim route to that city). The conditions in Syria forces pilgrims to walk through Jordan. He has still a long way to go, after he stopped for a smoke next to a horreo I never saw him again.
Waymarks and an old horreo in Villarica on the way up from Valdedios towards Alto de la Campa.
View down towards Valdedios and the monastery from the route up to Alto de la Campa.
It is a lovely walk and day. At Castro, I choose to follow Axel down towards Valdedios instead of walking the high-level variant over Arbazal that I originally had intended. I do not regret it, the route down in the valley are pleasant, though I did walk and wondered how the views would have been from up there. The monastery in Valdedios, Santa Maria de Valdedios, greets us with closed doors. Too early are we there. We take a break outside the doors to the church. Axel continues further, while I am sitting behind and enjoying the nice weather. In the ascent up towards Alto de la Campa, I am compensated for not going over Arbazal by some great views. Far below, I can see the buildings of the monastery between the trees in the forest. At Alto de la Campa there are only memories left of the bar and the petrol station where you could get some food and refreshments.
Break at the bar in La Carcava, with a cerveza con limon. I have started getting my first stamps in my pilgrim's passport. The Cicerone guidebook tells me what awaits me around the next corner.
After the descent from the pass, with good views towards the south, the route goes in and out of more boring sections. I stop for a lemonbeer (cerveza con limon, great in the summer heat) at a bar in La Carcava, before I have lunch in La Vega de Sariego, where Axel just has finished his lunch. The heat is giving more of a bite now, especially along the parts going alongside the roads. After El Castru, the camino leaves the road and enters more pleasant gravel roads that changes between going through woods and cultural landscapes. A little away from the camino a mountain is on its way to become dismantled. The last section towards Pola de Siero is a peaceful walk through forest.
Here the nature is in the process of taking back a horreo.
In the albergue in Pola de Siero, which is clean and pleasant, we are only five pilgrims. I spend some time looking at the town after having finished with the usual routines, like washing my clothes. The town is both bigger and nicer that I had assumed. Both Axel and the others disappears around dinnertime however, so I have to find a place to eat by myself. I had earlier found a place that had the usual menu del peregrino (the pilgrims menu), but the place appear to be closed when I arrive. Instead, I use a long time finding a place, which I always do when I am alone in a bigger place, in the end I find a place where I get a good solomillo de ternera (beef tenderloin). When I come back to the albergue both the gates and doors are locked, fortunately I got the key to them. Inside the people has gone to bed, while lights from the smartphones glows in the dark.
After a long walk on paved roads, it was nice to walk on a more pleasant gravel path after El Castru.
The first proper day on my walk carried promises of a great camino. From Villaviciosa there was a lovely walk with nice views on a mix of gravel paths and paved roads, even though some parts was a little boring. The best section of the route was in the beginning from Amandi outside Villaviciosa to Alto de la Campa.
Pola de Siero. Quiet in the afternoon, before the people filled up the streets in the evening.
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