Today, and whilst everyone in England is enjoying a day off work for a bank holiday, I’ve had to tiredly stumble back to work after a long weekend having fun out of Madrid. It’s a pretty easy guess as to where I went off to this weekend, as I seem to spend half of my life up in Asturias, and this one was no exception! It was only just over a month ago that I landed up there in Oviedo for part of my summer holiday, but on Friday night I was once again in a carpool on my way up to the north.

Upon arrival in Oviedo, Kevin whipped us up a delicious meal of fajitas and homemade humous, and then we headed out to meet up with Camila for a drink at our usual haunt. We had a lovely catch up over some beers, but didn’t stay out too late for Kevin had plans to take me to another seaside destination on the Saturday.

Sure enough the next day we were up and out by 8pm, catching a bus to a small seaside town called Lastres. Once we’d had a coffee, we began the downward slope to the front, taking in the views along the way.

Down by the water I had a craving for ice cream (despite the cold), and once I’d inhaled it for its energy, we set back on foot up the hill. In the town we stopped for another drink, in between climbing up and down it’s cute little alleyways and stairs.

Once we’d had our fill of the sights in the town, Kevin revealed his plans for lunch: a fresh seafood restaurant a little further long the coast. In order to get there, we spent half an hour wandering along the side of a winding road which had no footpath, but we eventually ended up in one piece at the lovely restaurant by the beach.

After a slap-up three-course meal, including a main course featuring the best fish I’ve ever had in my life, we descended to the beach suitably stuffed and ready to do nothing for a good while. Having had to wade through an estuary to reach the beach, I was soon throwing myself in the waves, retreating back to the safety of the sand when I managed to get a generous dose of saltwater in my eye.

As you can see, the weather had really picked up, and so I dried up pretty quickly once I sat down. This was to Kevin’s benefit, as he’d forgotten his swimming shorts, so I was able to lend mine to him for a while until we had to head back off to catch the bus. After some confusion as to where the bus would show up, it did eventually make an appearance, and we were taken back to Oviedo for the evening.

Once we’d paid a visit to the supermarket to pick up some traditional cider, we had a quick nap back home in preparation for the evening’s events: for once again it was fiesta time, only this time in the neighbouring town of Lugones instead of Oviedo (which was a blast last time, so I was totally down to party!)

Once we’d wormed our way to a spot to watch the orquesta, we began pouring ourselves the cider like I’d learned how to all that time ago, and the night kicked off! We sang our way through some English classics as well as all the local hits, with a rendition of Jeff Buckley’s Hallelujah going down an absolute treat!

After treating ourselves to another couple of bottles of cider, the second orquesta came on, and it was they who eventually wrapped our evening up at about 6am – the Asturians sure know how to throw a fully fledged party! On the way home we grabbed ourselves some churros to end the night, similar to last time, and then put ourselves to bed for a very very long lie in.

If your night doesn’t end with churros then you’re doing it wrong.

Needless to say that yesterday morning we didn’t wake up the freshest, and so we only really managed to leave the house in the mid afternoon when we needed to be fed. Heading to the centre, we had an absolutely huge meal for just over 10€, and once again we found ourselves stuffed full and lounging on a bench in the city.

I found myself taking similar photos to the time I first came to Oviedo, which is now way over a year ago, which is rather strange – it feels like I’ve known the place forever! Once I’d bought some delicious local biscuits –moscovitas– for the guys at work, all too soon came the time to catch my carpool back down to Madrid.

After a rather quiet journey, I arrived back in Madrid just last night –well this morning, technically– just after 1am. Obviously I just went straight to bed, but even then I have been pretty tired today, and so tonight I’ve to get myself to bed as soon as possible. And just as if I were a 10 year old child, it’s 9:30 already, and I’m going to go and read The Railway Children until I fall asleep…

Since landing back from England, it’s been back to creating all sorts of visual design in the Erretres office as usual! After a quiet weekend in however, I decided it would be nice to escape the city for a few hours during the next weekend. To do this, I hopped on a Cercanías train and headed out to Alcalá de Henares, a pretty little town outside of Madrid.

I didn’t really do all that much research before I headed out to Alcalá de Henares; I just knew that it was a quaint place where the tapas are plentiful and which is home to the childhood house of Miguel de Cervantes, the famous author of Don Quijote de la Mancha. I’d brought only my phone as a camera and, to keep me entertained, a copy of The Liar by Stephen Fry – a most excellent book if you can get hold of a copy.

I’d soon found my way to the high street, where I sat down for a traditional Madrid breakfast – toast with tomato, olive oil and salt on top. Once I was energised and ready for a day of wandering around, I set off to see what I could see, soon diverging off the high street and down into some of the winding alleys behind.

Once I’d found my way back to the centre, the heat was well and truly picking up, and so I sat down for a beer in one of the many terraces sprawled across the street. True to the town’s reputation, my beer soon came with a huge free tapa of potatoes in garlic sauce, and I savoured the moment for a while, sketching some design ideas and watching the world go by.

After polishing off my snack, I headed further down the street, eventually having to make a detour out of the centre in order to pick up some money from the nearest Santander branch which was quite a way out. This led me down some rather charming streets however, but true to form I totally forgot to take any photos of the actual high street, opting instead to capture photos of empty plazas and little details I found interesting.

With the day wearing on and my legs getting tired and wallet lighter thanks to all the drinks I was racking up along the way, I soon began to head back to the train destined for Madrid. It’s back in the big city where I’ve since been up to other bits and bobs, but I’ll leave those for another post once I’ve racked up a few more stories to share!

A random thought that I’ve had whilst compiling this blog post is this: my photos seem to be pretty much always devoid of people. If you scroll back up, you’d easily be fooled into believing that Alcalá de Henares is some kind of ghost town, but in reality it was bustling with people. I always somehow seem to find an angle or pick a subject which leaves the photo without any people in it, even if it means I have to wait a while for passing people to clear off. Just a random observation…

So here we go with Part 2 of the Great Northern Road Trip, picking up where Part 1 left off! Me and Kevin had just had a quiet evening after a busy day wandering around an abandoned factory, so it was time for us to get up early and head off to the coast to explore el cabo, or “the cape”, an outcrop of land hosting what I was told would be a few rather beautiful sites. After swinging by my beloved Mercadona (a supermarket chain here) for a big bag of cherries, we hopped in the car and headed northwards, with me throwing cherry pips into the bushes as we sped along.

After getting a little lost along the way, we arrived at out first destination, el Faro de Cabo Peñas. Faro being Spanish for lighthouse meant that I was expecting a lighthouse, and indeed their was one, but it wasn’t particularly pretty next to a modern radar tower, so we headed down to the cliffs to see what we could see down by the water.

Once I’d found a jut of land which was sticking out into the sea, I decided that I wanted to risk life and limb in clambering out to explore its tip. Kevin (rather sensibly) decided to stay behind a little bit, as in the end I wound up getting rather lost and stuck in some bushes, upon which I decided that the views weren’t that much different from the safety of the shoreline, and so made my retreat.

Once we’d had a coffee to refuel in a little coastal bar, we headed a little further along the way, stopping when I noticed an old industrial looking structure. On further instruction it looked like it held a series of siren horns, and we speculated that, with the cape being a strategic position, it may have heralded from the civil war era. I haven’t been able to find much about them online, so if I ever do I’ll come back to this post and drop that in.

Eventually the two of us became quite tired, and so we abandoned a plan we’d had to walk further along the coast and to a neighboring town. Turning back, we hopped back in the car and made our way to our next destination, another small town along the coast called Luanco.

Luanco proved to be yet another gorgeous location in the running series of pretty Asturian coast locations which Kevin has taken me to (with the last one being Ribadesella.) The buildings, as you’ll have noticed, were adorned with quaint colourful patterns, and the gently sloping streets lead to floral plazas and plenty of spaces to sit and take in the sea views.

Eventually we found our way to the town’s little beach, and took a peaceful stroll down the front, chatting away about all kind of nonsense like we usually do. Once we’d reached the end of said promenade, we turned back and headed back to the car, for we still had one place more to visit before the end of the day.

The next little coastal stop along the way was Candás, a town which sits just north of Gijón. Here, and after a small nightmare trying to find somewhere to park, we were greeted with a street festival which was in full swing. Snooping around the various cheeses, bakes, natural ciders and artesanal wares, we slowly dropped down towards the docks, stopping for a fresh cojito (like a coconut macaroon, literally meaning “little coconut”).

Soon we’d perched ourselves on the sea wall which separated the open ocean from the docked boats, and the sun began to set. This created a rather spectacular display, as the warm light of the setting sun illuminated a formation of clouds which had clumped together in the distance, making it look as though the apocalypse was upon us!

Once the sun had fully dropped beyond the horizon and the cold began to set in, we headed back through Candás and hopped in the car back to Oviedo. That night we’d planned to go out for drinks with a Andrei and Andre, but had decided to keep it chilled and early as we had plans to go out and explore Cantabria the day after – but as you can imagine, in the end that didn’t quite go to plan. After a couple of quiet drinks in a neighbourhood bar, we noticed a German-style beer festival was picking up momentum in a tent nearby, and so we went to investigate.

After my initial doubts about it, due to having been to a real German beer festival in the past, I soon downed myself a pint of rather strong beer found myself happily singing away to all the cheesy Spanish music that they’d put on. Quite a way from the real thing, but a lot of good fun nonetheless!

Needless to say that Kevin and I were a little worse for wear the next morning, and so our plans to explore Cantabria were a little decimated. Kevin whipped up a delicious hangover lunch of fried chicken with chips and egg –completely from scratch I might add– and by 5 o’clock we had to pack our bags and jump back in the car ready for Part 3 of our journey, which you can check out here. Check out Part 1 too if you haven’t already.