Cultural Holidays in Spain

great family run hotel, with lovely staff. good local guide

jill stevens Walking the Picos de Europa

The hotel is in an excellent location, just on the edge of a small town, either looking at meadows at the back, or some fantastic mountain views in the front. Get back from a walk and sit in that front garden with views like that with a cold beer and your fellow walkers (who were such a fun bunch on this trip!), doesn’t get much better than that! Comfy rooms too. Charming staff, everyone was always very approachable and personable and nothing was ever too much trouble -not just for the owners, everyone, really. Great food, with sometimes variable portion sizes, but always very very well cooked.
The walking was varied, some days rockier terrain, some days quite muddy, some days a mix of everything – no complaints in that regard. I think appropriately graded as well. Day 1 really did feel just like a warm-up walk, the most featureless of them all, both in terms of terrain and scenery. Not a bad walk by any means, but nowhere near as good as the other four days. Whenever there was an optional ascent/scramble on any of the walks, the bail-out point was always well chosen.
The biggest surprise of the whole trip was how quiet and serene it all was! Hardly ever seen anyone else apart from our own group (minus the Cares Gorge, that is definitely a very popular walk), just made all the walks incredibly peaceful. Of course that might depend on the time of year, but we were very lucky with that in the first half of July.

Tibor Bek Walking the Picos de Europa

The Torrecerredo is a great home-from-home, and the owners Jim and Pilar do everything to make your stay comfortable and convenient. The hotel staff are lovely.
Sometimes it was easy to forget you were in Spain, it was so lush and wet that the landscape was more reminiscent of Cornwall and Switzerland , especially with all those cows with bells around their necks!
Unfortunately the weather was very unpredictable and for two days the mountain mists descended and we could have been, well, anywhere.
The first walk was not especially interesting, the second was muddy but wonderful, and the sun shone.
I alone found the Cares Gorge a bit of a bore, a three hour unvarying trudge along a fairly busy path, then after a quick lunch you come back the way you came, so you get to see the same things twice.
Our fellow-travellers were a great bunch, which made the trip even more enjoyable.

Anthony Longaretti Walking the Picos de Europa