Heading west on the A-8
Luarca, Spain – My arrival was easy enough. Touch down at Asturias airport. Stuff my bags and surfboard into an electric blue Peugeot hire car and tentatively pull out onto the A-8 motorway.
I got lost pretty much straight away, which is a given when you’re driving on the wrong side of the road and navigating with a map on your lap at the same time. But it did mean I got to check out the sights of San Juan, a cosy little fishing village.
Its estuary seemed to be boiling and billowing in the afternoon light as a thick bank of sea fog rolled in, turning the sunny afternoon grey and moody in minutes.
Back on the A-8 and heading west I duelled with the Spanish drivers. The speed limit was a generous 120kph but even then I was being buffeted by the sonic booms of every Seat or Peaugot that roared past. And these were little hatchbacks! Imagine if the Spanish had proper cars?
The reason they can go so fast, it seems, is that the motorway is absolutely first class. Smooth, well sign posted and with enormous viaducts stretching way out over deep valleys. It was like driving in the sky.
Millions must have been spent on the stretch of road between Aviles and Luarca – all for the handful of people (relatively speaking) that live in this region.
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