Date: 24th July 2019
Travelled: 103 kilometres from Llantres to Aviles
Visited: Santa Maria del Naranco and Playa Salinas
Stayed: Playa Salinas, free. T+B N43.57756, W05.95631
Budget: 45 days @ โฌ90 per day
We drive out of Llantres and follows the GPS instructions to the A8 and continue on to Oviedo. Itโs a small city in reality, itโs industrial area spreading 10 kms from the Centro. Our guide book highly recommends visiting the hillside churches of Santa Maria del Naranco and San Miguel de Lillo, overlooking Oviedo.
We arrive early enough to have our breakfast before walking up the hill to the first church. Our original plan was to spend half an hour visiting the churches before going into Oviedo and having a wander in town. But…
I can only say we were underwhelmed.
Firstly we arrive to find we can only see the church, which is in reality a ruin, as part of a group. OK, we pay โฌ3pp and wait on one side as instructed. We seem to be set aside with a number of non-Spanish people. Other groups form and go inside we wait for 20 minutes or more. Our guide arrives tells us we should wear sunscreen and have a hat and be careful of trip hazards, she then lights up a cigarette. You can tell where this is going ? Eventually our guide walks us up the hill to the church of San Miguel de Lillo, the second ruined church on the site. Our guide then speaks in Spanish for 20 minutes, as half the group who cannot understand Spanish look at each other. The funny bit is the other half of our group are deaf and a person stands next to the guide is relaying her spiel in sign. So we all stand in the shade waiting for some information in English. Eventually I interrupt her and ask if any of this tour is in English, she tells me no.
By the time we return to the ruin of Santa Maria del Naranco and spend another 40 minutes listening to this woman, we can hardly wait to pull the rip-cord. But they lock you inside the church until the spiel is over. The church is a ruin, none of the frescos are actually visible. You may well have guessed we will not be recommending this tour to anyone we like.
By now its mid-afternoon, and getting hotter by the minute. Our plans of spending the morning walking Oviedo long gone.
Trying to put a wasted morning behind us we drive on the Aviles. There is a proper aire service point here, but no shade. We continue on 4 kms to the beach-side suburb of Salinas.
The camper stop in Salinas is a huge carpark behind the beach which looks a bit ordinary to be honest, so we venture further into town finding 50+ motorhomes and campers parked along the edge of the road behind the beach, so we find ourselves a spot. Chatting to our neighbour he tells us a festival starts here tomorrow and the local authority set aside this street for camper-cars, they even install drop-in toilets and wash facilities opposite. We introduce ourselves Midget and Gidget from Byron Bay and chat about our last gnarly ride and the great white that bit Gidgetโs board in half. So we go to the beach for a couple of hours, have a nap, get the BBQ out and relax the remainder of the evening away. All the following photos are taken the next morning.
We were a bit worried all our surfer dude neighbours may have been a bit rowdy overnight, but no it was very quite after 10pm 
Up early we thought about a swim, but the mist is a bit chilly.
We walk up the beach 200m, suddenly no mist. We do find this lovely combi. 
Two bronze Aussies.
Anyway that was Playa Salinas…time to pack the Hymer for our next adventure.
Michael and Pam
