May 29 – Gijon, Spain

church at Labour University

Weather – 21º

more of the Labour University

Steps – 10,104

Humidity – 20%

Today was the fist day we needed more than a t-shirt. It wasn’t cold, but it wasn’t warm either, especially when the wind picked up. Chris still

wore shorts but eventually put on a jacket.

Today was all about CIDER! One of my all-time favourite beverages.

We weren’t in port until 2pm, so we had a lazy morning, followed by a Spanish themed lunch, a drink while listening to ‘Cool by the Pool’ and watching sail in.

young apple orchard

The tour was a bit of a dud in retrospect, but it was fine and I got to sample some Spanish cider or sidre, as they spell it.

Again, we were on a large coach with only 24. And again, we had seats at the back to ourselves.

Gijon (pop. 270,000) is small city in the province of Asturias famous for cider.

old and new school crushing

Our first stop was at the former Labour University of Gijón, built from 1946-55. We really aren’t told a lot about this place other than its architecture is impressive.

Yes, I’ll agree that the buildings are impressive, but what else?? No stories, no lore…that’s what you usually hear when shown buildings. We were wondering what the point of this visit was.

With a name of ‘Labour’ we thought it had something to do with Communism or Fascism. It does, but we learn that from Google. Maria, our guide, only tells us that it was built as a school for children to encourage sports, learning, and excellence. Hmmm, there seemed to be more to

they put me to work!

the story and of course there was. It was first built as an orphanage for kids whose parents died in mines, then it was used by Franco during his reign. This place certainly is beautiful and impressive, but it was strikingly obvious how much of its history was avoided.

giant barrels

Next, we were off to the "llagar" (cider mill) where we hear about how Spanish cider is made – if we were here in the fall, during harvest, we’d actually

see what happens - now there isn’t much going on other than tours. After our lesson, we are rewarded with tasting 2 ciders and various regional cheeses.

These ciders are poured from a great distance (whether from a bottle or tap) and apparently this is where the fizz comes from. You aren’t supposed to savour, or smell, or look at the cider once it is in your glass, you are simply to drink so as to not let the bubbles dissipate.

our own bottle

I’d have liked to have tasted without the whole long-distance pouring, to see if there was a difference. We had our own bottle later in the day and we didn’t do any sort of long-distance pouring, and the fizz seemed the same. I really liked both ciders we tried – very dry.

tree made of sidre bottles

The last stop on today’s tour was to the old town of Gijon. We wandered behind Maria who gave bits of info, and then we were released for an hour of free time. This was about 5:30 and there wasn’t much going on. We saw evidence that things would be going on later, but this being Spain…not much now. We wandered a bit and finally found a place to get a bottle of cider – 700mL, 5.9%, 4 Euros.

street drawing

All in all, the tour was a bit of a miss. It was fine, but it was just a bit meh. We kept wondering if we were missing something…maybe it was Maria, maybe it is just a basic place.