The Beyos Villages

Since we moved to Asturias 15 years ago the Beyos gorge and particularly the Beyos Villages or “Pueblos Beyuscos” have always fascinated us and been one of our favourite places to visit.

Looking across the impressive Beyos gorge to the Picos de Europa from near Casielles.

The Beyos gorge was formed by the river Sella eroding through the impressive masses of the Precorninon limestone. It is about 12kms long and runs mostly through the Ponga region starting in the valley of Sajambre in Leon and finishing near Amieva in Asturias. Driving down the gorge is stunning; on either side white limestone rocks tower above you imparting a sense of power and dominance that is quite intimidating at times. A “beyu” is a local name for ravines, gorges and canyons and they could not have found a better word to name this imposing gorge.

The road leading up to Casielles

The cementry at Casielles

The Beyos villages or Pueblos Beyuscos are the remote villages impressively situated along the gorge. Three of the villages are still inhabited; Casielles which is approached via a “new” road with twenty three tight hair pin bends has just one farmer living there. Viboli with a couple of inhabitants is set slightly back from the Beyos gorge and is reached by a painfully narrow road which edges along a small gorge the “Foz de los Andamios.” The village of San Ignacio which is anchored to the rock at the edge of a precipice also has a couple of inhabitants. The other villages; La Caviella, Biamón, Canisqueso and Rubriellos are now all uninhabited and Tolivia probably the most remote of all the Beyos villages has sadly been totally taken over by brambles, chapel and all.

The church at Casielles

Typical ruined house at Biamon

The main characteristic of the Beyos villages is their geographical location and adaptation to the surroundings; steep terrain, steep roads, very closed enclaves and on occasion literally hanging from the rock into the valley. Simple stone built houses and granary stores with their two sided roofs unique to the Beyos are examples of the functional traditional mountain architect to be found in these villages. In times gone by, necessity drove the inhabitants of this land to create settlements in such a remote and demanding location. Even today, despite the improvement in communications, it remains hard to reach some of these villages and this has contributed to their decline and depopulation.

The village of Biamon lost on the edge of the Beyos gorge

"Horreo Beyusoc" Unique to the area; granary stores with two sided roof.

Despite the hard life there was still time for art; gate in Biamon

But the charm of these villages and hamlets lies precisely in their remoteness and timeless state. This is an area like no other, oblivious to changes in the modern world, natural beauty and landscape impact. Whilst walking through these abandoned villages one cant help but imagine just how hard living and working in such a precipitous landscape must have been. Growing food, farming, moving animals, collecting firewood and most aspects of daily life must have posed incredible challenges.

The chapel and granary stores in Viboli

Approaching Viboli on the "path" from Casielles

The paths and tracks which connect these villages and the surrounding pastures never cease to amaze and at times their trajectories defeats imagination. Some of the tracks are wide enough for a horse and cart to pass along, often built up at the edges with rocks and stones to facilitate their passage. Others are frighteningly narrow making the most of rock ledges, caves or whatever natural features there may be in the terrain which coupled with bravery and ingenuity would allow villagers to pass from one place to another with out having to remount some of the daunting mountains that surround them.

The major track from Casielles to Viego

The "Sedu Vibolinse" connecting Casielles with Viboli!

It is a unique experience visiting these villages and hamlets, the views are spectacular and the ancient roads and tracks offer tours of great natural and ethnographic interest. However as some of the photos show extreme care is needed if you decide to go walking away from the major tracks!

Goats in Biamon

We named our asturcon ponies after two of the Beyos villages; Tolivia and Viboli, wild and beautiful, and that’s what these villages are.

The Farm Around Easter

The Easter weekend is here and it’s come after a month of weather in Asturias that has been mostly warm and dry. All this hot weather after the wetter winter months has made everything grow fast and brought the season forward. It’s a lovely time to walk around the farm and sense and feel this surge of growth.

Vibrant green growth around the hotel and on the farm

In the meadows the wild flowers are bursting into bloom producing a mosaic of colour stretching above a base of vibrant green. There are orchids galore on the farm and the Bee orchids, Province orchids, Early purples and Tongue Serapias are well into flower. Most of the trees and plants are awakening from their winter rest and just coming into flower, but others have been flowering for some time. The mighty white flower spikes of the Asphodels will soon becoming to an end leaving the flower stalk full of seed heads waiting to ripen and disperse their futures generations into the rocky ground.

Asphodels flowering amongst the rocks.

Early purple orchid

The pastures are lush and the grass is growing fast, far faster than the animals can eat. The sheep are loving all this rich food and getting fat in the process and this new grass helps the mothers produce lots of milk. All the lambs born just a couple of months ago are no longer tiny babies but are now rather sturdy creatures which look like a match for their mums.

Mother and not so small lamb.

With so much tender grass at the moment we have to be careful that horses don’t eat too much and get colic. We extend their grazing area a little at time so as to reduce the amount of new grass they can eat. Wednesday the goat is happy that there is new growth for her to pick through having got bored with the same old plants to graze during the winter.

The asturcon ponies

Wednesday the goat

We always think of eggs at Easter and our chickens are certainly laying lots of tasty eggs at the moment. The warmer weather and longer days is nature’s way of telling the chickens it’s a good time to lay. The chickens roam happily around the farm in search of all sorts to eat. No wonder our eggs are so tasty when you see the variety of food they eat; flower heads, different leaves, seeds, creepy crawlies and much more. The only problem at this time of year is that with so much growth there are more places for the chickens to hide outside and make nests. But what a lovely job at Easter; walking around the farm trying to find a chickens nest and eggs.

An Asturian chicken looking for a place to make a nest.

Happy Easter.

Cookery Workshop

Cheese and onion roulade.

For us the food we serve and eat is very important, as well being an enjoyable experience it reflects our philosophies and beliefs. We often say we serve a “Home Grown Cuisine,” and about 30% of the food we serve is produced on the hotel farm. This means we have constant access to really healthy fresh produce and it also means the cooking has to be adjusted to what is available and in season.

Practising how to make different types of bread with Samantha supervising.

and writing notes….

This weekend we held a cookery workshop where participants learnt how to handle the spontaneity and the art of cooking healthy seasonal food, organic and vegetarian as it is prepared in the restaurant of the Hotel Posada del Valle. In the hotel set we serve a vegetarian and meat option; the meat always comes from carefully selected local and sustainable organic producers, but in this workshop we decided to specialize on vegetarian dishes.

It wasn’t just the women who were hands on.

The cookery workshops are informal and hands-on, taught by Joann and Samantha they are normally bilingual, but on this occasion all the six participants were Spanish. We limit the number of participants to six so that everyone has a chance to participate fully.

Preparing a leek and cheese roulade.

The cold carrot roulade.

The emphasis on the course was spontaneity and adaptability, taking standard recipes and adapting them to the seasonal ingredients that are available. Roulades are a classic example, they are very versatile and once the basic technique has been learnt they can be served hot or cold, sweet or savoury, making use of the ingredients that are available. A hot leek and cheese roulade, a cold carrot roulade and a raspberry and cream roulade where the types of roulades made by everyone this time. Amongst other dishes, all the participants made their own bread with different combinations and types of flour as well as adding a range of ingredients such as seeds, olives or grated vegetables.

Joe demonstrating another recipe

Proudly showing her home made bread before baking it.

During the weekend there was plenty of opportunity to try the food they had prepared as well as other dishes typical of the cooking at Hotel Posada del Valle. All the participants left at midday today most taking small samples of some of the dishes they had prepared. By all accounts everyone had an enjoyable time. The next weekend Cookery workshop is at the end of September and there will also be a seven day course “The Way of Food” in the middle of October. For more information on courses and events at the hotel check our web page.

The vegetable garden at the hotel.

Discovering the coast.

The Asturian coast waiting to be discovered.

We’ve lived in Asturias for almost sixteen years now and spend quite a lot of time exploring the coast and mountains (particularly in the winter when the hotel is shut.) Asturias never ceases to amaze us with her abundance of outstanding beauty and so many different places to explore and visit. Even after sixteen years we still come across superb new areas that we didn’t know of, such as the coast around Barro which we discovered this winter and visited last Sunday with all the family.

Joe walking on the headland above the beach at Barro

We spent most of the day walking around the headlands and beaches, and whilst the tide was out we had the chance to admire some most amazing rock pools full of sea urchins and sea anemones.

Beautiful rock pools at low tide

Colourful sea urchins in the rock pools

Lythophylum tortuosum a fairy tale thalloid algae found on the rocks at low tide.

Natural beauty abounds in Asturias and along the coastline there are often fields array with wild flowers and above the beach at Barro we found plenty of the small Narcissus citrinus playing tribute to the stunning views.

Narcissus citrinus on the headland

Barro is in the borough of LLanes about 30 minutes drive from the hotel or accessible (with a little walk from Celorio) by the Feve narrow gauge railway. It’s quite close to Torimbia another of our favourite beaches. There are a total of 54 different sandy beaches in the borough of LLanes, so I suppose it’s hardly surprising we don’t know them all. That’s what makes Asturias so lovely for guests who return year after year or for ourselves who live here, there is just so much to explore and discover.

Rocky cliffs

and sandy beaches.

Although it was a Sunday with brilliant sunshine there were hardly a person in sight but in the months of July and August this is an area which can get very busy with people. However with so much coastline and so many beaches; some of which are more accessible and some less so, there are always parts of the coast to discover and enjoy at any time of the year.

All the family enjoying a drink at a secluded bar above the beach.

Aroa Bodegas (Wineries)

Some of the Aroa vineyards with the new bodega on the hill in the distance.

In the season of 2004 we started incorporating organic wines in our wine list and one year later (after trying lots of different wines) we had a wine list made up exclusively of Spanish organic wines. In the beginning we had about 30 different organic wines on our wine list but over the years we have carefully selected about 20 of our most favourite wines to offer our guests

A recently pruned vine getting ready to send out its shoots for this season.

With out doubt one of our most favourite bodegas right from the beginning has been Bodegas Aroa. They have a philosophy of wanting to produce top quality wines and fully believe the best way to do this is by producing them organically. As we like to try and visit as many of our suppliers as possible we thought it time we visited Bodegas Aroa particularly as they had recently inaugurated new installations ready for this years grape harvest.

The recently finished bodega at Aroa

So on Wednesday we spent the day visiting the vineyards and wineries in the company of Txus and Kepa two of the key people behind the project. Bodegas Aroa started producing wine15 years ago from vineyards in the north of Navarra, an area which has been very famous for its wines for a long time. Over the following years they have planted more vineyards and now have about 20 hectares from which they will be producing about 120,000 bottles a year when the vines are all mature.

Kepa explaining about organic practices in the vineyard

They like us believe in the importance of caring for the soil in order to produce healthy crops. When they have to use a tractor they only ever pass it down alternate rows of vines so as to reduce soil compaction. The pruning’s and grass which grows in between the vines is cut and allowed to rot in situ so as to return natural organic matter back to the soil. Most of the crop treatments are based on plant extracts such as horsetail or stinging nettles and the vines are trained in such away so as to create a healthy environment around the grapes and thus reduce the possibility of disease entering. Their objective is not to produce lots of kilos of grapes but to produce top quality grapes so as to be able to produce top quality wines.

Testing different barrels of wine.

Up until this year Bodegas Aroa elaborated their wines in a neighbouring organic winery but after many years of planning they started building their own installations just over a year ago. One of their objectives is to be able to sell about 25% of their production locally, from the bodega itself. In order to do this they wanted to build a bodega people would want to come and visit, and they have certainly achieved that.

10,000 litre stainless steel deposits where the wine ferments.

Joe and Txus sampling wine from the barrel

The bodega consists of 4 stories; the lower two where the wine is elaborated is built under the ground and the upper two house the offices and restaurant. As it is situated on a slight hill there are stunning views of the surrounding valleys and mountains and most of their vineyards can be seen from the new bodega. The attention to detail in the design of the new bodega, the elaboration of the wines and the growing of the grapes is really impressive and it’s no wonder they produce such top quality wines.

The restaurante at Bodegas Aroa

In the hotel we stock four of their wines; a young Tempranillo Mutiko, a crianza Jauna, a reserve Gorena and a rosé made from grapes of Garnacha Tinto.

Aroa wine ready to be drunk in the hotel dining room

Bodegas Aroas is situated near the village of Estella in the province of Navarra and is just under a 5 hour drive from the hotel. The installation are open to visitors but it is necessary to make a booking first as it is to eat in the restaurant.

We wish them a long and successful business and thank them for such interesting day. More information on Aroa wines.