Covadonga and San Sebastian de Garabandal

[RumAndChupacabras]

I'll be going in April 2018 and am wondering if any of you have already been or will be there as well in mid April?

I'm very interested in Covadonga because of the history, including Don Pelayo. Also very interested in going to 'The Pines' in San Sebastian de Garabandal.

Buen Camino!

 

[caminka]

if you want to walk to covadonga, perhaps the easiest way is to follow camino lebaniego to potes then camino vadiniense to espinama, and here pick up ruta de la reconquista (gr-203 or gr-202, depending on the map) that leads to covadonga. there are two albergues in bulnes which is directly on the route, then you drop to garganta del cares. ruta de la reconquista leaves it soon and leads across mountains to lago de enol and refugio de enol, then to covadonga with hostal and hotel. I don't know if there is a marked walk route to cangas de onis (lots of accommodation), but from there a waymarked camino leads to oviedo, if I remember correctly - but not sure about accommodation on this one.

in any case, you need to research this in advance, as these are routes leading across mountains with few and further between facilities.

 

[Tia Valeria]

We walked the Norte, then took a bus to Arriondas and walked to Covadonga from there. Well marked once out of Arriondas and our hotel gave us good directions across the park and past the football pitch. We then bussed back to the Norte although it is possible to walk back via Cangas de Onis to Oviedo and then the Primitivo or the Norte. Our variant worked well for the time of year. The LLanes to Covadonga route would have been unsafe, which was confirmed by the Montaneros team, and also probably the route from the Lebaniego therefore at that time. We were walking in early May.