Oveido

About 5 hours on the bus took us to Oveido in the province of Austurias. We had some absolutely gorgeous scenery on the way. The mountain range of the Picos de Europa is near the coast and we rode between the inlet ridden coast and the mountains. This part of Spain gets a ton of rain. It is green and lush even in the late summer. All this rain helps support a healthy population of milk cows and apple orchards. With this the people make what else but cheese and cider and this is what we came here for. We walked around the city for a bit and then stopped into a Sidreria on a street lined with them.

There are 40 different types of cheese made here and we got a plate sampling 10 of them. Of course we drank the cider which was much better here than other places we drank it in Spain. Now the fun part of cider is that the waiter holds the bottle above his head as far as he can with his right hand and holds the cup in his left hand as low as he can and pours it in. This is to get the cider foamy and it really brings out the flavor. Unfortunately this is very difficult even for experienced people and as a result half the cider goes on the floor. Cider pouring is really messy business, but at 2 euro for a big bottle no worries.

This is a beautiful part of the world and shatters the general stereotypes of Spain. Lush and mountainous and more like the Scottish highlands than Spain. It is less touristy and we would have really liked to explore a little deeper and go even farther west. This would take time and probably require a car, but we got a little taste to help better plan another trip in the future.