Arriving in Spain, making new plans

We had a rocky start to our time in Spain, for a couple of reasons, but it’s shown the kids how we sometimes need to deal with unexpected situations, adapt and make the most of it.

Firstly, our final train in France, which took us to the border town of Hendaye, was about 30 minutes behind schedule. This was somewhat ironic, because the trains in France had been so punctual until then, but this ended up delaying us by several hours.

Because of the late train, we missed our connecting bus. Luckily we found some very friendly and helpful people in Spain who helped us find a later bus, but we had to make a connection. And that put us even further behind schedule. We had to deal with a massive sea of soccer fans heading into the stadium beside the bus station in Bilbao at game time, which also delayed things. We got our rental car 15 minutes before the rental car company closed, but we only got to our final destination, Llanes, at 10pm. The kids had fallen asleep in the car and we missed dinner. Still, we were grateful that we had arrived, and our lovely Airbnb host even met us when we got there to check us in. We had a comfortable place to sleep and got back on schedule.

Llanes is a small coastal city in Asturias:

The next morning, after fortifying ourselves with churros and chocolate, we had planned to head into the mountains, the Picos de Europa.

We had purchased tickets for the gondola (Telférico) to take us up a mountain, but there have been such bad fires in Spain lately, the gondola was closed due to smoke, and we missed our chance to go. We also found out that our next destination, also in the mountains, Somiedo, was one of the areas most affected by fires, and our Airbnb host contacted us to say we couldn’t come. We had planned to hike and hoped to see some wildlife.

This is my second time in this part of Spain, but the first time I was going to be hiking in the Picos and surrounding area. I felt disappointed, but I’m more sad that this is the state of our planet. Of course, we can adapt, and we are fortunate enough that we can make alternate arrangements on such short notice, but it feels like we shouldn’t be so accepting of it. It's crazy to me how normal this all is now.

The kids didn’t have high expectations for this part of the trip, but this has meant that we have to pause our outings and time with them to make new plans and find other accommodations. They have had to be patient and flexible as well. We have been trying to make the most of our time, and are staying close to the coast, which is further from the fires.

Llanes (where it rained!):

While Jon and I were working away to find a new place to stay and safe route to get there, we let them build a fort in our small apartment living room:

We also went to Ribadesella, another coastal town 30 minutes from Llanes:

We headed further west and into Galicia and stopped at a beach to dip our feet in the water among the rock cliffs:

Because we couldn’t go to Somiedo, we found a place to stay in Lugo, overlooking the Paraza Maior (main plaza) and walked around the ancient walls of the city:

We’ve been assured by our upcoming hosts that the fires are not affecting the areas we’re going to next, but if they do, we’ll figure it out!