Maybe it’s the fresh mountain air or the feeling of being far removed from daily life, but spending time in the mountains just feels good for the soul.

We spent two days in the Picos De Europa, a mountain range in the northern part of Spain spreading across the Asturias, Cantabria, Castile and Leon regions.

Having left the glorious sunshine of the coast, we were expecting a drop in temperature as we climbed the mountain ranges. Strangely we were met with warm, dry air as it transpires that the Picos De Europa benefits from a mediterranean micro-climate. Bonus!

Second to walking, driving has to be the best way to soak up the varying scenery that greets you at every turn.

We came to the Picos de Europa (which translates to Peaks of Europe so named as they were the first sight of Europe for ships arriving from America) to spend more time walking in the mountains, having immensely enjoyed our time in the Pyrenees. Rather than book accommodation in advance, we decided we would stop and find a hotel if we came across a tiny village that we liked. That wasn’t hard to do when presented with views such as the one below.

Such natural and rugged landscape is home to a variety of animals which we were hoping to catch a (distanced) glimpse of, especially the brown bears, wolves, dear and eagles; although I’m not sure how many we were going to see, from the relative safety of our car or hotel.

It turns out, our closest encounter of the animal kind came in the form of a cow. Actually, that should be plural as there were plenty of them. These were a special type of cow, not only did they have some impressive horns, they were the type that enjoyed grazing on the road rather than in a field. We know this, as our car came nose to tail with a few of them as we wound our way through the mountain roads. Thankfully we were traveling slow enough to avoid any collisions but it certainly made for an entertaining journey!

Once we managed to navigate past the cows and made it into the mountains, we set off to Cares Gorge one of the most popular walks in the area, thanks to it’s striking setting and beautiful scenery. We had read that the gorge can be as much as a mile deep in places and stretches along the jagged mountain edges for 12kms.

As we rounded the final bends into the town of Cain, we were met with locals and firefighters, lining the streets, all staring worryingly toward the mountain where multiple fires were burning.

Unfortunately the area was filling with smoke and the Cares Gorge walking trail was closed.

And so our plans to walk the gorge were permanently put on the back-burner (sorry for the pun) and we made our way to a nearby tourist information hut to try out our non-existent Spanish and find out if there was another part of the region we could discover.

It seems that this area is designed for Spanish speakers (the information hut attendants spoke less English than we spoke Spanish) and hard-core hikers, with most walks starting at 4.5 hours, one way. Having lost part of our day discovering the bushfires, we selected the shortest trail, which was also close to our hotel, hoping to glimpse something similar to the beauty we were expecting from the Gorge.

Instead we climbed a dirt road and were met with a plague of flying bugs that looked like tics and just wouldn’t go away! As pretty as the trees were, the infestation and monotonous scenery became a little boring.

So after a few hours of walking, our hotel view seemed more appealing so we took the afternoon off to just relax and soak up the serenity.

There’s so much to see an do in this area – a common theme we’re experiencing in each town. But after two nights exploring the mountains, it was time to head further south towards Portugal.

Driving can be somewhat monotonous as roads often stretch on past uninspiring landscape, however as we left the Picos De Europa, our first hour’s drive showcased more of Spain’s natural beauty, particularly around the town of Riaño.

As the sun set behind the mountains, we could only hope this scenery continued to inspire us all the way to Portugal. For now, our next stop was going to be Leon.