Luarca

30 September

Moving westward, we continue to enjoy the Cantabrian coast. On the way to Luarca, we stopped briefly in Llanes (at right). We have never stayed there, but remembered visiting its attractive harbor and historic center last year​. It is a small (4,000 ​people​) fishing port with a lively tourist industry (mostly other Spaniards). Lots of nice walks in and outside of town, beautiful scenery, interesting shops and restaurants. This time, we were especially interested in its Indiano houses of which there are several.  Photos are here: https://plus.google.com/u/0/113886039316216265781/posts/fXFbfKupy7y?pid=6064166603799051282&oid=113886039316216265781

We had seen Luarca, a ​regionally ​well-known fishing port in the Valdéz municipality of Asturias, from the train to Ribadesella last year and were attracted to it. So, this year we spent three nights there. It is a proudly "white" town of about 5,500 that climbs up the steep hills around its port and is divided by the river that flows down out of a deep gorge a bare kilometer from the beach. Several bridges cross the river, so it is no impediment to the flow of traffic in town. We were in a very small, modern hotel a ways back from the waterfront, but the town is so small that we could easily walk everywhere we wanted to. This is cider (sidra) country, so we tried some and enjoyed it; it is not sweet, and is poured from 3-4 feet above the glass to aerate it a bit, which livens up the flavor. Luarca has a beautiful harbor and is still a very active fishing port, and we watched boats go in and out each day. It was a very relaxing place.

Both mornings we were in Luarca, we went off to explore the many Indiano houses in the region. On the plain above Luarca's gorge, in the larger municipality of Valdéz, we found a grouping of five or six Indiano homes around a common square that were quite spectacular, but all were abandoned and run down except one that had been turned into a modern hotel. One particularly evocative house had burned shortly after being built, and was never restored; today mature trees grow right out of its empty shell. See local tourism info​ in English​ at www.turismoluarca.com/index.php/que-hacer/cultura/87-casas-de-indianos.

Our hostess at the hotel lived in a nearby fishing village, Puerto de Vega, and recommended two restaurants there to us, since we were headed that way with our explorations. With only about 2,000 inhabitants, Puerto de Vega is even smaller than Luarca, and we enjoyed the intimacy of its port. And we found that it contains several Indianos of its own. We ate delicious seafood lunches there, at each of the two restaurants, ​on each of the ​two days.

We also visited the Asturian towns of Navia, Tapia, and Castropol, looking for Indiano homes. We didn't find any that were particularly memorable, but the coast and countryside were spectacular.  My photos are at https://plus.google.com/u/0/113886039316216265781/posts/AWRyqYAs9PX?pid=6064884937856520914&oid=113886039316216265781