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A perfect trip to Asturias - How everything began
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Everything started in Wyoming - In early August 2009 and in front of the John Moulton Barn, just to be exact. The picture I took there in the first light of the day was not only a nice shot, it was also my ticket for a wonderful trip to the Principality of Asturias.
But this has turned out much later, in October 2009, when the DigitalPHOTO-Magazin, together with some other sponsors, has organized a contest.
The ten best submissions, so it has been announced, will enter the final stage of the contest which will take place in the Principality of Asturias, which is a part of Spain. Flights, Hotels and Lunch will be free to the ten finalists. Additionally a tour guide and a professional trainer from Canon will be on site providing guidance and free equipment for testing. Sounds attractive to you? So it did to me.
To keep it short: I entered the contest by submitting the picture of the John Moulton Barn and got a seat to Asturias. Life can be so easy :-)
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Day 1 - Travel to Asturias
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Air Berlin, one of the Sponsors, brought the finalists from all over Germany via Mallorca to Oviedo. We arrived in Oviedo short before noon. This sounds very comfortable, but in fact it required me to leave home at 0:30 AM the same morning. Immediately after arrival we got invited to a fabulous 4-course lunch by the Tourist Board of Asturias, which is also a Sponsor of the trip. After lunch we stretched legs by having a walk through the old town of Oviedo. The light was boring and we were quite in a hurry, so it was not really a good situation for taking pictures. But we could get known to each other and this was also very interesting.
Later the day and before the transfer to our hotel in Gijon, we did a short stop at the old church San Miguel de Lillo, located in the hills above Oviedo where the picture was taken which you can see on the right side.
We reached our hotel in Gijon at about 9 PM. After having a beer and a pizza snack, I ended my day without taking any more picture, but with the intention to shoot on the beach at sunrise.
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Day 2 - From Gijon via Lastres to Cofino
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Sunrise in Gijon
Despite of the strenuous day yesterday, I was able to get up early without any problems. I grabbed my backpack and my tripod and walked along the harbor esplanade towards an old church located on the other end of the harbor. I was there almost half way as I noticed that the sky reflects the first light. I turned around looking back to the direction where I came from, and I immediately decided not to proceed to the church but to go down to the beach and shoot the sky over the low tide. Down at the beach, I looked for a pattern which creates depth and which is able to lead the view into the picture. I found it in a tidal creek and in order to emphasize this pattern, I used a wide angle lens placed just centimeters over the beach. The result can be seen on the right side.
Back in the hotel, I was surprised that most others of our group did not used the first light of the day for taking pictures.
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Laboral Ciudad de la Cultura & Atlantic Botanical Garden
The university of Gijon (Laboral Ciudad de la Cultura), also called “The City of Cultures”, was our first official photo stop for that day. (The visit to the beach I did early morning was not an official part of our schedule.) The university offers a great architecture and you could easily spend a full day exploring the campus and looking for interesting views. Unfortunately our time was limited to just one hour. We first did some shots in front of the university and inside the campus, when we saw that there is a balcony on 17th floor of the tower which looks very promising for taking an overview shot of the location. The door to the tower was locked, but we made it to get a private guided tour on top of the tower.
Unfortunately the elevator was broken two days ago, so we had to take the stairways up to the 17th floor. The view was definitely worth the effort.
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Lastres
We proceeded to the small town of Lastres where we first had an extremely delicious meal, followed by a two hour time frame for strolling through the small alleys and taking pictures. To our surprise, the entire town was strongly frequented by tourists. The reason was, that Lastres is the back drop for a very popular TV series - Doctor Mateo - and half of Spain seems to be keen on being to that place.
Due to its geographical location, Lastres offers also a great view to the Kantabric Sea, which has been more or less the only shot I could take in Lastres without having people in the picture.
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Also in Lastres, we have been able to watch some locals playing a very popular game called “Bolas”. I was not able to figure out the detailed rules, but it looks like a mixture of bowling and the French game “Boule”. Ten pins are set up in a grid and you have to throw a wooden ball. You have to aim very accurately like the player in the picture above to your right.
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Last light at La Fito
On our way to Cofino we passed one of the most famous view points in Asturias, called “La Fito”. Our original schedule was to be there for sunset, but we caught some delay over the day, so we reached La Fito after sun set and literally in the very last light of the day. Nevertheless, it was a wonderful view down to the valleys and the ocean in the background. You can see it at the picture on the right side.
We reached our hotel in Cofino in the early night. The keeper informed us, that all our rooms would have a sensational view to the mountains and watching sunrise from the balcony of the room would be simply spectacular. After again having a very delicious meal, we watched a selection of the pictures we took that day, had a beer and some good talks and went to bed long after midnight - me not forgetting to set the alarm to one hour before sunrise.
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Day 3 - From Cofino to the Picos de Europa National Park
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First light in Cofino
I was up early enough to make myself thoughts about from where to photograph the sun rise. I had doubts that there should be no better view than that from the balcony and since it was still dark outside, I decided to explore the area behind the hotel just to make sure not to miss a better place. It turned out that the place I was looking for was located just a few meters behind the hotel and up the hill. It was a small tower, just big enough that one person could stand on top and it seemed to be build just for having a great view over the roofs of Cofino and towards the mountains. But the biggest advantage of that tower was, that it also offered a view in the opposite direction to that of the hotel rooms. No matter where the sun would rise and how the sky would be lit, from the top of “my” tower, I would be able to get the best shot. And I was right...
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Picos de Europa National Park
The main topic of that day was a visit to the Picos de Europa National Park. It has been Spain’s first National Park, founded back in 1918 as “Parque Nacional de la Montana de Covadonga”. In 1995 the area of the National Park has been increased and the name has been changed to its current name. Since 2003 it has the status of a protected habitat by the UNESCO. Beside the great scenery it offers, it is also home to some rare species like the Mountain Cock (Tetrao urogallus), the European Brown Bear (Ursus arctos) and the Bearded Vulture (Gypaetus barbatus).
Not so rare, but unique to Asturias are the Asturcon Horses, a local breed of horses. They can be seen frequently and not only in the National Park.
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But also if you do not see one of the species mentioned above, the scenery there is simply stunning and definitely worth a visit. We had a private guide who lead us on a wonderful back country hike. We enjoyed the view of Lago de la Ercina and passed by some stone cabins which are still in use by local farmers to store their cheese for ripening.
Well, the first half of the hike took place in pleasant weather conditions. The clouds you can see in the picture of Lago de la Ercina are the herald of a weather change which caught us after half the way.
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First the sun was simply hidden behind clouds, but then within minutes, fog rolled in limiting the sight to a few meters. The spray of the fog turned into light rain, then into medium rain and then we got soaked. Except of my trousers, all my outdoor stuff has worked like designed. The rain cover of my photo backpack was a seal to my photo gear. Also my rain jacked kept my upper half in a try condition. Only the trekking trousers worked like a sponge. But this was an issue I could easily deal with. I simply moved the content of my trouser pockets to my jacked and instead of complaining about my wet legs, I was happy that my gear stayed try in this bad weather conditions.
When I think back to that hike, I did not want to miss the bad weather part of the hike, because it gave us a complete impression of the landscape and not only the sunny part. It was great!
When we reached the parking lot, our bus was the only remaining vehicle there. All other visitors to the National Park seemed to be more cautious about the weather and already left. We dropped our wet clothes into the trunk of the bus, but the cabin ventilation still had problems to keep the windows free of moisture. Our hotel for that night was also the first photo stop for the next day: A cheese factory. The hotel of the cheese factory was a small one, having eight guest rooms. Since our group had the size of thirteen people, additional rooms were made available in hotel nearby. Due to my distaste for cheese, I volunteered for a remote room.
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Day 4 - Wooden shoes and the way home
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A visit to a manufacturer of wooden shoes
Rain was poring against my window the entire night, so I did not get up for sunrise this day. For well known reasons I also gently skipped the shooting in the cheese factory and joined the group afterwards for visiting an old craftsman who makes wooden shoes in his small factory. On the way to the craftsman, we walked through small alleys and a friendly old woman started talking to us. Maybe she was wondering about ten people carrying relatively large cameras and a TV team following them? I don’t know. Unfortunately I was not able to understand her, but when I gestured for taking a picture she friendly agreed and smiled to the camera.
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The history of wooden shoes in Asturias is based on the situation that during the winter season in past times the roads were muddy and if you have to cross your own yard for example you did not want your good shoes to get dirty. Therefore wooden shoes were made to act as a coat for good shoes. On the pictures below, you can see they have even small pillars in order to prevent the mud from entering the shoes. As we reached the wooden shoe factory, our tour guide asked the craftsman for the approval of taking pictures of him and his small factory. Like every other people we met during our visit in Asturias, he was open to this and happy about the interest for him and his work. Additionally he showed us some of the tools he uses and he roughly described how the shoes are made.
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Left: A pair of wooden shoes, before the clear coating which is the final step in the manufacturing process.
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Right: Ready for delivery - wooden shoes on stock
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Left: Explanation on how wooden shoes are made
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Right: The office of the factory
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This has been the last schooting we did in Asturias. We proceeded to a nice restaurant for an excellent meal and continued to the airport, where our plane to Mallorca left at 5.10 PM. Arriving in Mallorca at 6:40 PM, we had just a few minutes left before we sayed goodbye to each other and everybody entered the plane to his local airport.
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My summary
The photo trip to Asturias was all in all very close to what I call perfect. Yes, our schedule was tight, from the photographic point of view it was sometimes too tight. But the intention was also to get an impression from Asturias not only from behind the lens and this was arranged by the Asturian tourist board in an absolutely excellent way. The hotels they choose, the meals they arranged and last but not least our travel guide Elena, everything was simply great.
Another big “Thank You” goes to Canon for staffing the trip with Gregor Zajac, who is not only a great guy but also an excellent photo coach and for providing us with tons of demo equipment. Yes, the 14mm Wide-Angle is a cool lens, I think I got hooked on. :-)
Of course, I would like to thank DigitalPHOTO-Magazin for arranging the contest and all other contributing sponsors for supporting the contest. Please visit their web sites by clicking on the sponsor logos on the bottom of this page.
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I hope, you enjoyed this report. Thanks for reading,
Michael
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