Asturias - Housesit
We left Barcelona destination Asturias region in northern Spain. A trip of about 900kms we made an overnight stop in Bilbao to check it out.
Nice old quarter in Bilbao to wander around but unfortunately as our overnighter was Sunday/Monday and we arrived later afternoon we didn’t get chance to visit the Gugemheim Museum. Too late Sunday and closed on a Monday but we enjoyed the self guided city walking tour instead.
One on our way again we made a stop at Llanes, small seaside town on the north coast of Spain, for coffee before heading to the sit in nearby Grazanes. Having met the locals who kindly helped us locate the house, we were then warmly welcomed by Lonneke and Aura (the dog). Aura is a Spanish mastiff, a rescue dog and despite being a large breed dog she is very timid and we were asked to arrive the night before the home owners departure just to make sure all was well and to show us the ropes for the dogs and 3 cats, as well as the house management (well water, septic tank, minimal power capacity where the use of too many appliances will cause an outage!) and the veggie garden.
The house and location is stunning - with a vista of the Picos de Europa from every viewpoint.
It is fair to say that the weather was ‘average’ for our first week (like snow and single digit high temperatures) but it didn’t stop us making the most of exploring the local area which is stunning. Few wet walks up the mountains, a coastal trip and a visit to Gijon, the largest city in the Asturias region and where we found some sun and blue skies.
By week 2 it all started to feel like home and the weather turned from literally freezing to 27degrees in a matter of days!!! As such more big walks were in order.
