Gijón & Playas

Since Kim is busy with work tonight, I’m filling in as blog writer again! This past weekend we took a trip to Gijón, which is about 3 ½ hours away by car. Although there is nothing really famous there, Gijón is where my grandfather (on my mother’s side) was born and raised. I had never visited the city prior to this weekend, so it was great to be able to see where he grew up.

We drove there Friday evening and the drive was very nice – it’s all along the northern coast of Spain and what is known as the “Costa Verde”. There are hills and mountains on one side and the ocean on the other. Appropriately enough, we found the landscape to be very green! On our way to Gijón, we took advantage of the time of day and stopped by a really cool beach that is only accessible during low tide. The name of the beach is “Playa de las Catedrales” and it gets its name from the rock formations that are all along the beach and give you the feeling of being in a cathedral. It was quite surreal and almost felt like we were on the set of some sci-fi movie. We took quite a few pictures on the beach and then made our way back to the highway and Gijón.

Saturday morning we explored the city, mostly by foot. We started in what is known as Cimadevilla, which is a hilly peninsula right in the middle of the city. This is where the first inhabitants of Gijón first settled and there are some cool ruins of Roman baths there.

This is under the floor of the Roman bath. There used to be a big fire at one end of the bath house. The heat from the fire would travel under the floor and would heat the bath water.

This is a view of the various rooms of the bath. Most of what remains now is just the floor and the subfloor system.

There is also a nice park at the top of the hill that has great views of the whole city. The park is built on what used to be a military post and you can see where gun turrets used to be as well as the remnants of a bunker built in to the side of the hill. We could see why that would be an ideal spot for setting up your guns since you can see for miles around.

After exploring that part of the city, we made our way to Plaza Mayor, which was a nice square with a market. The smells of chorizo, jamon serrano, and cheeses from various little stands were delicious.

After this, we walked along the boardwalk next to Gijón’s main, crescent-shaped beach, Playa de San Lorenzo. It reminded us a little of the beaches here in La Coruña. We people watched for a while and then made our way over to the street were my grandfather lived, Calle Corrida.

It is a nice street that is designated for pedestrians only, so we walked all along the street from one end to the other (it’s not very long), looking at the various shops that do business there. In one of those shops we saw some beach mats for sale and since it was a very nice day, we decided to get them and planned on going to the beach that afternoon!

We ate at a good restaurant that my parents recommended and tried some “fabes con almejas”, which is similar to fabada but not as heavy. This is a traditional dish from the region that Gijón is in, Asturias. The main ingredients are large beans, “fabes” in Spanish, that are apparently called Butter beans in the US. It was delicious.

After lunch we decided we were going to go spend the rest of the afternoon at the beach. With that in mind, we went to the Corte Inglés and got a paddleball set and then headed off to the beach. It was a great afternoon and it also happened that there was a beach volleyball tournament going on, so we watched a few games and enjoyed the atmosphere.

For dinner, we went to a “sidreria” close to the hotel. This is kind of like a bar but in Asturias, it is very popular to drink sidra (cider). It’s not just any cider though, this cider has a special technique for pouring and drinking. There’s a great webpage telling all about this cider at http://www.sidradeasturias.es/. I’ll briefly explain how it’s done. You order a bottle of cider, which is a bit smaller than a wine bottle, and the bartender pours about a third of a cup worth of cider into a glass, but holding the bottle over his head and the glass around his knees!

Once he’s done pouring and maybe making a bit of a splash, he then hands you the glass and you have to drink it all at once, leaving just a little bit left. Drinking all at once keeps the flavor as it should taste coming out of the wooden barrels it is fermented in. If it were to sit, the flavor would be completely different (so said the bartender). Traditionally, a group of people share the same glass (family and friends sitting at the same table) so the little bit you leave behind you swirl around the glass and then dump it on the floor! We each had our own glass, but saw other tables doing this. It was pretty interesting to observe and quite tasty!

The next morning we headed back to La Coruña, but since it was another very nice day, we decided to stop at a couple of beaches along the way. The first beach, Playa de Aguilar, was in Asturias and it was amazing. It was just a beach surrounded by green hillsides.

It was quite big, so there was plenty of room to layout and also play paddleball. Once we got hot, we jumped in the cold ocean, which felt great. It was amazingly clear. You could easily see at least 10 feet down from the surface of the water. We spent a few hours here, grabbed some sandwiches at the one bar at the non-rocky end of the beach and drove off.

(added in by Kim: Look at the size of these hydrangea plants?!! These pretty much grow wild in this region of Spain. We passed these plants in every color of the rainbow - some probably about 10 feet or more tall and just full of flowers! This whole street was lined with huge flowers - it was beautiful.)

The next beach we stopped at was in Galicia, next to the town of Burela. It was smaller than the previous beach, but also very pretty. Again, the water was very clear and cool. Although we didn’t play paddleball here, we did throw the Frisbee that came with the paddleball set around in the ocean. It was fun to throw the Frisbee around since I think it was the first time I’ve done that since I broke my wrist last summer…

We spent another couple of hours there and then headed back home just as the clouds started to roll in. Although we hit some traffic on the way back, we made it home in time to watch the second half of the World Cup final. All in all, it was a great weekend getting to know where my grandfather was born, seeing some beautiful beaches, and Kim and I both have pretty nice tans as a result! This coming weekend we’re headed to Bilbao, in the Basque Country. This is where my grandmother was born and lived until she and my grandfather left Spain. It should be fun!