1 August - Day 7 - Comillas to Llanes 26km
Cold shower to start the day. Not sure why there was
no hot water. Packed and on the road by 7am.
Nothing open in Comillas so we head towards San Vicente which is 10km away. Rolling coastal road with glimpses of the ocean and little traffic.
As we hit 5km we find a beach side cafe open. Worst tortilla on the planet, stale bread and well below average coffee to boot… but it lined the stomach and provided much needed fuel as we didn’t have dinner last night.
Meet a guy from Ireland and a girl from Germany at the cafe and walk with them for a few kms. They are walking to Colombres 40kms away as they haven’t been able to find any other accommodation. Hmmm same problem Kim was having last night scouring the web for beds. 40kms is WAY too far for us do, so we decide to walk until we were tired and then catch a bus to Llanes.
The terrain is steep and the day is humid but overcast. We hike up the hills and are drenched in sweat. At the top we are greeted by the sea breeze. The paddocks we pass are home to cows, horses and goats. We notice one horse has a cow bell... must be naughty. More fields of corn. Bales of hay wrapped in plastic… mmm the smell of silage (rotting hay) on a hot day.
At 21km we are both in need of food and a rest. We hit a T-intersection on the outskirts of a small village (Muñorrodero), and see a cafe 100m off the trail. It has a menu of the day sign out front and seats under a gazebo overlooking the fields. Perfect.
The waitress greets us with a strong English ascent. Turns out she is Spanish but lived in the UK for 25 years.
The menu of the day has a choice of 4 entrees and 4 mains and comes with a bottle of red wine, a bottle of water, a bottle of lemonade, bread and coffee for €12pp.
While waiting for our food we chat to Tomas, a 20 something Italian lad from the Lake Como region. He is camping his way along the Camino, but from what we could see, still eating well. He is walking to get closer to nature and God and making best attempts to disconnect from the modern world… compared to others guys age at least.
Lunch arrives… entree: Kim - vegetable ratatouille and an egg, Daz - chickpea, chorizo, chicken and black sausage stew. Main: Kim - fried whole bream, Daz - Lamb shank. The stew was incredible and enough to feed an army! Daz would have been happy with that alone.
After a leisurely 2 hour feed and Daz nearly falling asleep we set off again for a final 5km to Unquera. We are fortunate to find the bus due 10 minutes earlier is late. We catch the bus to Llanes 26kms away.
This takes us into our third province of the trip, Asturias. We started in the Basque region, then through Cantabria and now Asturias. Our final region will be Galicia when we head inland to Santiago de Compostela but that is still over a week away.
In Llanes we bump into an Italian girl who was in our dorm on the first night and she shows us the way to the albergue. No doubles but our dorm is small with only 6 beds. The showers and toilets are mixed and communal.
We make our bed with the single use sheets they provide, shower the days sweat away and since it’s 6pm we decide our clothes won’t dry tonight so air them instead.
We go out to check out the town but Daz is not feeling well…maybe too much stew at lunch, so he heads back to the albergue but snaps a photo of me in a random pretty doorway before he heads home.
9pm bedtime.
The food. When it is good, it is excellent.
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