Grand Tour
The Picos
Three days in the gorges and lakes of the Picos de Europa.
The Picos de Europa are Spain’s secret Alps, a limestone fortress twenty kilometres from the Atlantic where the roads squeeze through river gorges and climb to sacred lakes. Everything here is close together: you can breakfast under the Beyos gorge walls, lunch above the clouds at Covadonga, and sleep in a mediaeval square in Potes. Blue cheese caves, brown bears in the high country, and some of the emptiest great tarmac in western Europe.
Beyos and the sacred lakes
Overnight: Cangas de OnísIn through the back door: the N-625 threading the Desfiladero de los Beyos, one of the narrowest great gorges in Europe, then the pilgrim climb from Covadonga basilica to the glacial lakes at Ercina, cows on the road and the Picos filling the sky.
Sotres and the Hermida gorge
Overnight: PotesUp the AS-264 to Sotres, the highest village in the Picos and home of Cabrales blue cheese, then round to the Desfiladero de la Hermida, where the N-621 runs the river between kilometre-high walls to the old town of Potes.
San Glorio and the high country
Overnight: RiañoSouth over the Puerto de San Glorio, the big empty pass out of the massif, brown-bear country with the whole southern wall of the Picos in the mirrors, dropping to the reservoir fjords of Riaño.
