Alison

My A to Z Travel Challenge – R is for Ribadesella, Spain 🇪🇸

Ribadesella is located on the North Coast of Spain and looks out over the Cantabrian Sea and the River Sella runs through there. I chose Ribadesella to break our journey from San Sebastian to Santiago de Compestella.
We stayed for two nights in the Hotel Gran Sella with a beautiful room overlooking the Playa de Santa Marina. This hotel was a former 19th century palace belonging to the Marquis of Argüelles.

Source: Booking.com

The Esplanade in front of the hotel goes on for ages and we had a wonderful walk along the seafront. It is home to many old houses at one time owned by prosperous returning merchants from overseas, places like Chile and Mexico where they had made their fortunes.  Apparently they date back to 16th and 17th century but surely must have been renovated many times since!

  • One of the houses formerly owned by a returning merchant

After a cocktail on the verandah in the hotel we drove over the bridge into the small harbour where there are many seafood restaurants. We just chose one at random and were not disappointed. We ordered a seafood platter for two, but was large enough for four.

Underneath this huge plate of fish there was a layer of potatoes

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Day Two in Ribadesella

Anthony had read about the  Tito Bustillo Cave (Cueva de Tito Bustillo), known for prehistoric wall paintings of animals and figures, probably dating from the Magdalenian age, 29,000 years ago, and wanted to visit. We walked from our hotel but when we arrived found that we had to book to enter, that day all the times had been sold out. There was only the museum to wander around. It’s a good excuse to visit again.

The Picos de Europa in the background
A painting from inside the cave

In the afternoon we drove up into the mountain village of Mierres and found somewhere for lunch.

I took this photo because I was intrigued by the photo behind it!

We hope to go back one day to Northern Spain and explore more of the seaside and mountain villages. The food is wonderful and the scenery outstanding.

Some other places we have also travelled

My A to Z Travel Challenge – G is for Geysir and Gulfoss, Iceland

Both Geysir and Gulfoss are located within the Golden Circle in Iceland.  These were places we visited a few years ago on an Icelandic Air tour.  We first had one night in Reykjavik and the next morning boarded our coach to the next hotel which was Hotel Grimsborgir. Geysir This was our first destination outside…

by Alison

My A to Z Travel Challenge – E is for Ephesus, Turkey

Ephesus, Turkey We visited Ephesus on our Mediterranean cruise many years ago.  We took my parents who were then in their early eighties.  This was one of our ports of call along the way.  Docking in Kusadasi, we took a bus tour organised by the travel desk on the cruise ship to Ephesus.  Even though…

by Alison

7 comments

  1. I too, love northern Spain. It’s very beautiful and not overrun by tourists. Those who do go there are mainly the Spanish themselves. The seafood is incredible. It was quite unfair of you to put up that image of your seafood platter when my dinner tonight is a basic pasta with pesto followed by stewed apples and creme fraiche!

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  4. Ribadesella looks a lovely place to stop Ali. Love the colourful buildings and atmosphere especially as it doesn’t look too busy of touristy. Seafood platter appears amazing, hope you made a real effort to get through it all.

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