Colunga, Asturias

 Colunga, Asturias  

I had two versions of the truth as my guides differed on the correct route. I decided to take the one that looked more scenic. I walked out of my four star Gran Hotel del Sella and along the water front overlooking the bay.

At the far end of the bay, El Camino turns inland and up a gentle slope towards the top of a ridge. 

As it descended, there were several small remote villages but most farmhouses had a granary or food store, known as horreos, built of wood but planted on top of several stone mushroom shaped foundations known in English as staddles. The stone mushroom shape of the staddles prevent vermin, especially rats from being able to raid the larder. It is also a useful dry space to store wood for the winter. 

Houses on the Mediterreaean coast of Spain don't have central heating as the temperature rarely falls so low as to need heating. Up in the north, everywhere has central heating, or fireplaces and stoves as it gets cold in winter, and wet as Atlantic storms power across the Atlantic and hammer into the northern regions. It is no surprise that Galicia in Spain's far north west is the country's wettest region. 

A local's sense of fun with a forest of poles with names of distant places but without the distances. 

A view of a gorgeous sandy but empty beach near La Isla. 

As I walked intoColunga, I passed a large building, set in its own grounds surrounded by metal fencing with a pair of stone pillars at the entrtance to the estate. There was no information board but I wondered whether this was a quintara or an alqueria. Alqueria is a term refering to large country houses typically found in the Levante region of Spain that were lavish homes on large estates built by wealthy individuals returning from making their fortunes in the Spanish colonies of South America.

In other regions, they are sometimes referred to as Quintara, a reference to Latin meaning a fifth, as early exploratory expeditions to South America were expected to pay a fifth of their profits to the king. 

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Another large house.

The church in Colunga, my stop for the night...

...and another horreos, a granary built on staddles in front of my hotel.