Picos de Europa and Fuente De

 Geo exited our joint biking and wine tasting trip and returned to Bordeaux for his flight home. Despite the kidding, he did a great job planning the bike routes, which wasn’t easy. How he found that stream to ford while we carried the mountain bikes I will never know.  

I dumped Geo at some rundown bus stop and sped away in my comfortable rental car to hike a couple days in Picos de Europa in NW Spain. It is called Picos de Europa because they were the first mountains mariners would see when returning to Europe from the New World. They are little known in the US but are a very popular hiking destination in Spain according to the WSJ article I read. I may be the first American to bike them since Ponce de Leon. 

The first night I stayed in Potes- not to be confused with POTUS- a charming Spanish mountain town-

I am not sure what the Spanish would do without stone. 

I then got up early the next day and was one of the first people up the mountain the next day as day. broke and the cable car opened at 10 AM. Still the hike at the top of Fuente De and then down is a Spanish classic supposedly -

Now I see where the Spanish get all their stone. But Picos also has some pretty green valleys and snow capped peaks too-

So the Fuente De hike had some pretty impressive

mountain scenery-

But it is only set up for the next day where I hiked Spain’s most popular trail- Ruta de Cares where the scenery is some of the best I have ever seen. See next blog if only for the pictures.