Day 9 - Ribadesella and dinosaurs…

It was a noisy night at times with loud gusts of wind followed by total silence. Make the most of the facilitates whilst avoiding our unpleasant German neighbour and have a long chat with the very pleasant French guy in the other side of us who has been to more places in England than we have! 


It feels like we’ve stayed here a lot now with really seeing Ribadesella itself so start off driving down to the hermitage on the eastern headland. Once again Google is optimistic about how far we can drive and we park before the promenade starts rather than take the suggested route of driving on it! It’s a lovely walk down to the end where the geology of the cliffs is stunning but Graham takes the walk to the hermitage on his own as my knee can’t do the steps. The view from the top is amazing , seeing the whole town as the sella flows through it to the sea.

 

From the promenade you can also see the row of Indianos house built on the spit opposite which are beautiful but closer inspections will have to wait for next time. We quickly pop in a small Carrefour in the town centre before hitting the road. 

Now that we are on Spain’s Jurassic coast we need to see dinosaurs so we head first to the Museum of Jurassic Asturias. 

This is s huge museum on a site filled with large model dinosaurs that would make many young children squeal with delight. But for us it the museum itself that makes us very pleased. Perfect combination of beautiful space and well designed display. It’s built in the shape of a dinosaur footprint with each ‘toe’ displaying a different prehistoric period as you wind around the walkways. Most information is in Spanish but some is in English too and there’s an online guide and leaflet to help. That said it will be sometime before Graham stops childish giggling at the “copulating” Tyrannosaurus Rex skeletons

We use the full one and a half hours that the museum is open and then have a bit of a look at the grounds too … it’s very quiet, almost have the whole place to ourselves… the joy of off season visits! 

Still time to see the real thing … the village of San Telmo is only a couple of miles away and is the access for the beach at Playa de La Greiga. We park and walk the 700m to find the famous dinosaurs footprints on the beach. When we find them the sauropod ones are easy to see they are vast! A bit of research and a further look and we find others too. Quite incredible to think you are literally standing in the footsteps of giants! 

Even without the dinosaur prints this is a stunning spot. We can’t bring ourselves to leave, there’s a closed up campsite and no where official to overnight so we’ve tucked in beside the campsite entrance on the edge of the river. When light falls it’s dark and complete silent. Fingers crossed we aren’t moved on! 


Cumulative Mileage: 440

Overnight: ‘Wildcamp’ at San Telmo

Spending: Shopping €15.42 Museum €9.50 (over 65s rate!), 

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