Camino del Norte 18: Fin

Our final day on the Norte was 18km from Colunga to Villaviciosa.

It rained for much of the morning which quite neatly mirrored our wistfulness at finishing our Camino del Norte today. It wasn’t a bad hike today, but the rain does restrict your view from inside a raincoat. It also amusing how you get to recognize other walkers by their backpacks and then they go incognito under ponchos and rain-covers.

So our Camino del Norte has covered, according to Jennifer’s stats, 370km with a total up-hill of 8300m, and an average pace of 12.47 minutes per kilometer walked. The soles of Jennifer’s boots are literally worn flat, although that’s not all down to the Norte. (If you are worried about how she’ll deal with the next walk in these, and you should be, the good news is she has another pair of boots in Madrid.)

We’ve enjoyed the walk. Probably the major criticism is that there was a lot of it on tarred roads and on roads shared with cars. But it has been very beautiful and the coastal vistas have been wonderful.

The trip wasn’t over for the day with our arrival in Villaviciosa. Our original plan was to stay the night in Villaviciosa as it was the end of the day’s walk, then we would catch a bus to Oviedo tomorrow and the train from there to Madrid. But the only hotel available was not leaving us remotely thrilled and the bus before the train was a fiddle. So we changed things up and caught the bus this afternoon.

This all turned out to be a great plan for several reasons. First when we went to the original hotel to pick up our shipped bags, it was not at all nice. The man behind the grotty reception, once we got someone’s attention, was incredibly grumpy – and that was not because we were not staying, as we were still paying. Second the bus trip over winding mountain roads left me feeling car sick, so recovery time is good. And finally our hotel in Oviedo is great and our room has a view of the Cathedral. So all good.

After showering, we took a stroll round the old town and then moved on to a celebratory cocktail.

[For those who follow this blog closely, I had a whim when starting the Norte that I would use one word a day in the title. It was an absolutely dumb idea and will not be repeated. And for those who know me well… yes, I started so I had to finish.]