Day 28 - Zero in Gijón
Date: Friday July 12
Start: Gijón, Asturias
End: Gijón, Asturias
Daily Mileage: NA
Total Mileage: ~308mi (495.7km)
I bet you are wondering... did we get our beach day?
We woke up to news like this:
Yikes, looks really hot...
Don’t even leave your hotel. What a vacation.
Most of Spain is baking.
MEANWHILE IN GIJÓN...
High for Today: 68ºF (20ºC)
Current Temp: 62ºF (16.6ºC)
It was drizzling when we awoke. Cloudy skies forecasted all day.
Not exactly a beach day.
Le’sigh...
Gijón lies in the narrowest of corridors of Spain that is not hot AF... the little bit tucked up into the northwest corner. This, of course, is good news for hiking. Not great when you are looking for a beach day.
We have ONE WEEK left along the coast. With ONE MORE coastal zero day (at least as planned). LAST CHANCE. We shall keep our fingers crossed.
Since we were not donning our swimsuits for the day, we went about our zero lives as normal, carrying umbrellas and rain jackets just in case.
We started with a tasty breakfast of a very good tortilla con chorizo. Yum.
And then we did laundry. We managed not to melt or burn anything to the ground, which was a huge win. Shawn did slightly shrink one shirt, but everything is going to be okay.
We don’t want any funny business.
The rest of the morning was a bit of strolling/window shopping. We picked up a few toiletry bits and bobs. I half-heartedly looked for a nice shirt (the two ‘nice’/town tops I had along were destroyed in the laundry fiasco). I did not succeed. (I am a terrible shopper). Shawn looked for a different pack, not loving the one he’d picked up in Santander. He found some options, but nothing that he liked enough to invest in yet another bag on this trip.
Later in the afternoon, we were out an about again.
First up, despite all the lovely local Asturian cuisine options about, we took a break from the local fare and had nice steaming bowls of ramen for lunch. Just the ticket on a cool day.
Bonus: lunch was delivered by a robot – because, Japan.
Domo arigato Mr. Roboto...
After lunch we strolled around the odd shaped peninsula that sits along the center of Gijon’s coast – home to the popular Cimadevilla neighborhood, the Parroquia San Pedro – an historic Catholic Church, and the Parque Santa Catalina.
Palacio de Revillagigedo
A ‘tree’ made of cider bottles.
While there were some lively areas – small plazas where diners enjoyed lunch at outdoor tables – strolling through the Barrio de Cimadevilla, we found much of it to be quite underwhelming. Most of the buildings look abandoned. Entire streets were completely silent. And there was a fair amount of the ‘ugly’ type of graffiti – mostly a lot of tagging. No actual art.
Continuing northward, we walked through the Parque Santa Catalina, where others were out strolling the paths and enjoying the cool weather that the rest of Spain was missing out on.
Elogio del Horizonte (Horizon Praise), Eduardo Chillida
Sitting above the coast at the highest point of the park, Cerro de Santa Catalina, was a sculpture by Eduardo Chillida. We had seen some very different seaside sculptures by him in San Sebastián, where there was also a temporary exhibit of his work in the San Telmo Museum, which I visited. He is quite a well known/respected artist in Spain.
His sculpture here in Gijón stands sentinel along a walking path. A solid and sturdy bit of awkwardly shaped concrete. Without knowing anything about the sculpture, you might look at the shape and simply think, why?
When we checked into our hotel yesterday, the woman had told us about the sculpture. “When you stand behind it,” she said, “It sounds like hearing the ocean in a seashell.” While we didn’t find this to be exactly the case, it was somewhat true – standing behind the sculpture, the sound of the waves below did seemed amplified in some way.
We continued through the park along the waterfront area by the Parroquia San Pedro before heading back toward downtown Gijón.
Cold days are great to tuck into cafes for a warm cup of coffee and a sweet treat. At least that’s what I tell myself.
In the name of culture (and owing to a bit of a sweet tooth), I tried Gijón’s namesake cake: torta de Gijónesa. It had a spongy base and a slightly nutty flavor – which I later read was a ‘Jijona nougat cream’ – information that clarified exactly nothing for me. As a tasty afternoon dessert with coffee, I would rank it as: just okay. Maybe a 5/10. Nice texture, not my favorite flavor. Sorry Jijona nougat.
Shawn had gelato. He was the winner in the dessert category for the day.
And that was our zero.
It’s hard to believe that today marks four weeks on the Camino del Norte so far. While some cities seem like they were long ago, on the whole the walk seems to be going very quickly.
Just a little over two weeks to go!