The village of Isaba. Lots of winding cobbled streets and the odd shop selling Roncal Valley cheese (which apparently is quite famous - though I'd never heard of it before). A very picturesque little place though.
The photo below shows a type of humungous raft that the villagers used to build to transport logs down to the Mediterranean. This is quite an impressive affair as the local river is quite narrow and very fast flowing in places (see previous page). They had an information board nearby with photographs of the locals manouvering this raft along some rapids. Hair raising stuff!
After the Pyrenees we made the long journey to the Picos De Europa. During our stay in Spain we drove about a thousand miles and I reckon the majority of that is made up of our Pyreneean detour. Well worth it though! The scenery on the journey north was breathtaking - lots of little deserted ruins on hilltops, circling eagles, fields full of sunflowers etc. Driving past the industrial suburbs of Bilbao and Santander brought us back to earth, though, and we eventually reached our next stop in the seaside town of Llanes after dark. Llanes was in the middle of it's fiesta and the campsite was full. It seemed a nice little town, but it was packed and the night we stayed there wasn't particularly pleasant. |
