Interlude: Gijón to Madrid by AVE

No pictures for today. I took the fast AVE train from Gijón to Madrid, which was supposed to take about 4 hours, and get me to my hotel in Tetuán by late afternoon. I had even preordered a lunch sandwich to be consumed at my seat.

As it turned out the service was slightly delayed due to trespass on an area surrounding the track, according to the announcement. Other passengers who had onward connections south suffered more. I hate trespassers. I probably could have made a flight in the mid-afternoon the next day, but I wanted a bit of safety margin and to reacquaint myself with Madrid since my last transit in 2009.

I wanted to fill a gap in my travels around Spain. In 1993 I only visited Santander and San Sebastian. I didn't see most of the marvelous coast in between and beyond. And while I'm at it why not see south-western France, also a neglected region in my travels.

There was another reason: I was scouting out the Camino del Norte with the notion of walking it in 2027. While the scenery is more spectacular and the path is cooler than the Camino Frances, it is more difficult because of the many changes in elevation and longer distances between stops. I witnessed the elevation changes firsthand; you can also see it many of the photos. So my revised thinking is to walk the section of the Camino Frances from Logroño to Burgos to get a taste of that, apparently the foliage is beautiful in autumn, and then teleport to the Ferrol to do the last 100 km to Santiago de Compostela to qualify for a compostela. A little known fact is that you can walk 25 km in a Camino related walk in UK or Ireland before crossing to A Coruña to walk the last 75 km of the Camino Ingles. Now you see the origin of the name. Or maybe omit the second part as I've already obtained a compostela. Oh well, we shall see.

Despite being disabused of the idea of walking the Camino del Norte, I got to see the beautiful coastline of Basque Country, Cantabria and Asturias, and the grand mountains of Picos de Europa. So that aspect was very satisfactory.