Friday, August 6, 2021

Oviedo, Day 3

Bike route: Oviedo to Monumento Sagrado Corazon, 10.4 miles, 1492 feet of climb

Another slow start this morning, but we still accomplished quite a bit. After rolls, juice, and coffee in the apartment, we took the bikes for a test ride--to see a couple of ruined churches and a statue on a nearby "little mountain." It felt good to stretch our legs. The bikes worked great except for a little misadjustment in Ken's derailleur and low pressure in all our tires. A quick stop at the bike shop around the corner fixed everything for 2 euros.

Showered and changed and headed back to the Vodafone store for some help with our phones. We couldn't get text message, FaceTime, and iMessage to work. Found out our new plans do not include text message, and FaceTime and iMessage will only work when communicating with a phone in the US (maybe; not sure I understood that last part). Anyway, in Spain, everyone uses WhatsApp for messaging. (I think we had the same situation in Greece in 2019.) We installed the app and established texting between us.

By then we were hungry but the restaurants were not open, so we snacked on bread, cheese, and ham. We have noticed that the food at the restaurant right outside our apartment looks (and smells) amazing, and the tables are always full, so about 8:30 we stepped outside and tried to get a table. No way; they were booked for the next four days. We wandered over to another side street and found an empty table at the Barra de Pintxos, where we ordered two pintxos (tapas) for our first course and two half raciones (half-orders) for the second course. All delicious and more than enough to eat. After a nice long walk around the outside of the old wall, we were in bed by 11:30. Way past our "normal" bedtime but well before Spain's 1:00 am curfew.

The Iglesia de Santa Maria del Naranco was built not as a church but as part of a palace for King Ramiro I in 842. It was constructed in a pre-Romanesque style called, fittingly, Ramirense. This church is about two-thirds of the way up the southern slopes of Mount Naranco--about 2.5 miles from the center of Oviedo.

At the top of Mount Naranco is the Monumento Sagrada Corazon (Monument to the Sacred Heart of Jesus), a modern sculpture completed in 1980. Yes, it was designed to emulate the statue of Jesus in Rio de Janeiro.

Oviedo lies in a valley about 1300 feet below Mount Naranco.

The Monument to the Sacred Heart of Jesus shines brightly from the top of Mount Naranco and is clearly visible when you step outside the old wall in the center of Oviedo.

The Oviedo Cathedral dates from the late 8th and early 9th centuries. The current facade was constructed in the 14th century, and the tower was added in the 16th century. What we see now is thus a mixture of Pre-Romanesque, Gothic, and Renaissance styles.