Luxury, a 3-night stop. Our campsite was a couple of kilometres out of town. We managed to get a decent enclave in the campsite for our little collection of motorhomes.
On our first full day we walked down hill for a visit to the Tito Bustillo prehistoric cave. It is named after one of its discoverers who later died in a climbing accident. Numbers on tours into the cave are strictly controlled and leader Andy had a booking for 11:00.
This is archaeology and prehistory so it isn’t exactly my cup of tea but seeing some of the cave paintings was quite interesting. The tunnel into the main chambers of the cave was about 600m long. Photography is not allowed in the cave so you’ll have to use your imagination. The paintings featured horses and deer, for the main part.
We’d been underground for about 75 minutes before emerging back into daylight and crossing the bridge over the river Sella into the main part of town for a coffee. After our coffee group split up Francine and I went in search of a restaurant for what leader Andy refers to as sea monsters; he is not a seafood fan. We found a pleasant but slightly windy restaurant and enjoyed yet more zamborinas [scallops] this time supplemented by a classic pulpo a la Galega [octopus on potatoes sprinkled with paprika]. Being on foot, we did, of course, have another bottle of white wine.
Andy did the group proud in the evening catering for a 12-person barbecue on relatively limited cooking facilities. Some of us chipped in to assist with other offerings including various salads and a bowl of padron peppers which I prepared for a starter. Afterwards I brought out my box of Orgasmos which turned out to be rather unexciting biscuits. They did, however, cause the required level of amusement. I have to say they are grossly oversold. What else did I expect?
We were left to our own devices for our second day in Ribadesella but of course, being seafood fans, Francine and again wandered down into town in search of lunch. We found a restaurant with an appealing menu in the more sheltered opposite end of the harbour area.
On the menu here were navajas [razor clams] which we had been keen to get for a while. Navajas literally means knives in Spanish. They do look a bit like a cutthroat razor. Ordered these without a second thought and when they came, they turned out to be the sweetest, most delicious navajas that we could remember eating. They can a little gritty but theses were not; quite superb.
Our second choice was a bit of a disappointment, to be honest. We’d ordered calamar which should have been squid but what we were given was a chunky cuttlefish. This really was one of Andy’s sea monsters. I think this would more normally be called sepia. It was OK but it has to be said cuttlefish is not my favourite.
We’d ordered a third dish which was, in truth, a bit over the top. It was interesting though. This was a local morcilla [black pudding] which, we discovered, was wrapped in seaweed. The morcilla was fine but it was served on tortos, maize flour discs which were little more than sponges that soaked up lashings of cooking oil. Aubergine slices can soak up a lot of oil but it ain’t got nothing on tortos. Having taken an experimental bite, we didn’t eat them.
Francine was aware of a curiosity in Ribadesella, which we went in search of. This was the escalera de colores, a coloured stairway. A local artist had the idea of people turning up, painting a step and writing a sentence on it. It’s a nice idea that was narrower than I expected, between a couple of buildings, but it’s quite long and does add a splash of colour to the neighbourhood.
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