adventure | Fletch Travels

We were expecting rain on Tuesday but the clouds started clearing and we decided to drive two hours into Picos de Europa to the Fuente Dé cable car. The drive didn’t disappoint as you could see mountains all around as you drove the windy road through the different towns. The drive is pretty easy since it was all pretty flat.

We got to the cable car, and there was a little bit of a line to wait in. They get 20 people in each car, and it takes 4 minutes to get the top. There are two cars so we only had to wait about half an hour. But if you are looking to do this in the summer, it can take hours. There was also pretty much no line right after us so it really is all about timing.

Once at the top, you can follow a hiking trail that is slightly up hill around a mountain. From there you can pick if you want to go left or right. We picked left mainly because I kept wondering what was around the next bend. To our surprise we could see a couple of lakes along the way. And yes, at some point I had to agree that we could turn around because I’m always going to wonder what is around the next bend…or mountain.

You also have the option to walk down instead of taking the cable car. But since we really weren’t prepared with water and food, we opted for the four minute ride back to the bottom. This area was well worth the drive. We headed back for about 30 minutes to the nearest town to get lunch/dinner. From there we were able to pick a different route back that took us through a different section of the mountains. It was all very scenic and turned out to be a great day instead of the rainy day that we anticipated.

We were hoping for some blue sky today but it turned out to be pretty cloudy. It is still warm and humid so we still didn’t need to worry about a jacket. We made our way to Sete Cidades which is probably the most visited spot on the island. There is a very small town located near the center of a volcanic crater. The volcanic crater is almost 3 miles across.

The park contains a lot of volcanoes and many lakes. We did a couple of hikes to see the two main lakes. One hike was a lot easier than the other hike. We hiked around one of the main lakes. It starts out nice and flat for a long time before the trail turns into a steep up and down terrain. We were already well into the hike when we started to wonder how much harder it could get. There weren’t a lot of people on the hike which is probably one sign. And the people that passed us the other way would tell us it is very difficult where they came from. But we kept thinking it couldn’t be more difficult than what we just did. I think we made the right call to keep going and not back track because it seemed easier than what we had already done. We did have to climb some large rocks but at least they had ropes to help us. One of the rocks was almost my height. And then there were a lot of trees branches down in the area that you had to climb through. It was a good challenge but I think the view was better from up top instead of close to the lake.

Once back to the car, we drove to the west coast of the island. It was still pretty cloudy but the ocean is so calm and blue. And the rocks were very black. They don’t have the normal sandy beaches here and I’m sure the water is still probably pretty cold. One more full day on the island before heading back to LIsbon.