Day 51 – to Villaseca de Laciana

I’ve just started reading William Boyd’s new novel, I am a big fan of his. This, The Romantic, tells the story of a man’s life, born in 1799 and lived until he was 82. His best novels have taken a similar pattern, Any Human Heart, The New Confessions and Sweet Caress. Its 500 pages started slowly, but it’s picked up well now.

Another fine morning at this remote and peaceful refuge, an excellent stopover place, though the weather is due to change tomorrow for a couple of days, with rain, and even some snow at this sort of altitude.

I took on a bike hike today with the dog. I have done this before, and think it’s okay if the distance isn’t too long. Roja is 8 now, has some arthritis which shows itself in him being stiff when he gets up later in the day. It’s not a problem at the moment, but some care is necessary. He likes to lead the way, 20 metres or so ahead, always, and this isn’t different when I’m on the bike, which means he is moving quickly. On the downhills, I just go very slow, but it doesn’t really work, especially today, where we are high up on very dry ground, and there is no water, into which not only will he drink, but also he will cool himself down. He is after all, a Cumbrian dog, and not used to temperatures above 20C. But we managed fine, I just won’t make a habit of this sort of day.

After lunch the wind got up and helped my decision to move on.

The next destination I have planned is 1700 metres up, so I’m stalling that for a few days until this weather has gone through.

I headed north to Vallablino which is the biggest town for some way around. I spotted a car wash, which I’ve been looking out for, and for a couple of euros the van got a good ten minutes of hot then cold spray.

I noticed that at the nearby village of Villaseca de Laciana there is a brewery, or cerveceria, in an old narrow gauge railway station. It’s situated just off the ‘via verde’, once a railway, now a greenway, or cycle and hiking route. It seemed a perfect stopover.