When the rain in Spain falls mainly on us tourists, jump on your rothar and get a vino
THIS holiday would be different. Spain from another perspective. The real Iberia.
We have done the Costas, the Canaries, the Balearics, Madrid and Barcelona. Hasn’t most everyone?
The difference would be that after flying into Bilbao and a reverential nod towards the Guggenheim – its curvy architectural audaciousness still a sight for the most tired eyes – we’d head west along the coast through to Asturias.
Our destination? A farmhouse.
Not isolated exactly, but up in the hills gazing down on a pretty resort. We’d hire bikes. Navigate the byways and never-were ways; freewheel to the beach for a swim, and find sleepy villages where tourists are a rarity, if not a curiosity.
In the evenings we’d wander down the few kilometres to the seafront, or eat out in the garden which had its own lemon and orange trees.
How perfect would that be?
It was. Except for one tiny detail – one we hadn’t counted on.
The rain. Rain with a capital R. And then some.
There were clues, of course. This is an Atlantic coastline and our farmhouse sits between it and the steep, jagged-topped Sierra Cueva Negra. The perfect recipe, as we know from our own western seaboard, for generous and unpredictable levels precipitation.
Most mornings began with black, voluminous clouds rolling down from these forbidding summits towards the sea, threatening and often delivering deluges. of Overnight too we’d hear the old gutters creaking as the rain teemed down with unrelenting ferocity. We weren’t prepared, of course. Flimsy windbreakers were no protection from the torrents and we didn’t have a warm stitch of clothing between us.
Our local beach, a picture postcard of sandy elegance washed by turquoise seas when we arrived, was transformed into a refuse dump of detritus vomited up by the swollen Rio Sella as she thundered into the bay.
But the holiday wasn’t spoiled. If one thing growing up in a soggy archipelago facing a great ocean teaches you it is how to cope and adapt when the wet stuff sweeps in.
So we did. When it wasn’t raining we were out on our rothars, blindly following curious road signs or hiking modest summits just to see what was down the other side.
When it was, there was always the indoors. Preferably somewhere that served Rioja, or sidra or one of the region’s wonderful summery cervezas. The sun is always shining if you know where to find it.