
Picos de Europa
Exceptional holidays, beautifully local & certifiably responsible
Meet the Picos Back in time A modern farmer Office visitor The first time Cheese caves A room with a view Cider stories A guiding hand Moments of perfection Meeting Covadonga
From Liébana, Picos de Europa
It isn’t supposed to be clear, it’s November for heavens’ sake. By rights the mountains should be in a thick layer of cloud. My new wife and I should be curled up, guilt free, in front of a big open fire.
But we have been blessed with a beautiful day and there is no excuse not to be up here in the high mountains. Diego wants to show us a walk from Sotres village, it sounded pretty nice. In reality it’s breathtaking.
From Liébana, Picos de Europa
We were walking back in time. Every step further from Potes was like moving decades away from the present. In every little village there were no more than six houses. Red geraniums thrive in every window and entrance door. We barely saw people, neither walkers nor locals.
A single sleepy cat was the constant in every settlement, as if guarding the past, making sure things were exactly as left there before and not letting any memory escape.
From Liébana, Picos de Europa
Rafael is the owner of a large sheep and goat flock. Like his ancestors, he worries about wolves killing his livestock at night, but he also has a powerful 4-wheel drive to make his life easier. He has a daughter living in the capital and at night he might post a picture on Facebook.
Whatever changes, he remains one of the nicest people you can find in the Picos and a great person to spend the afternoon with, chatting about life.
From Llanes, Picos de Europa
Working in the Picos has its ups and downs. We sometimes struggle with a bad internet connection. We have teenage kids who want to move to the city. And we always have to balance our internal challenge of sharing our beautiful land, without helping to destroy it.
But instead of commuting, we have time for an afternoon hike in the hills. After work we can go down to the beach for a swim. And, sometimes, our office is visited by the locals.
From Liébana, Picos de Europa
The first time I went to the Picos de Europa was the result of a sustained campaign from Diego. He kept telling me about these mountains in the north that I simply HAD to see.
Finally capitulating, I remember clearly driving along the Hermida Gorge thinking, “why on earth has nobody, apart from Diego, ever told me about this?!” The Picos are so dramatic and spectacular that it’s wonderfully easy to disconnect from daily life and soak up nature.
From Liébana, Picos de Europa
When the salting was done, I followed Ruben and his donkey, charged with big pieces of dried and smoked cheese, to the maturation cave. I followed his footsteps through a small hole and down a 10-metre vertical staircase into the dark.
The cave opened out into an immense room, where hundreds of cheeses rested on the wooden shelves. Over the next two months or more, the mosses will travel slowly into its core, giving it its unique taste.
From Liébana, Picos de Europa
We were in good hands. Being nearly winter, a fire was roaring, a game of chess, a fireside chat and glass of Rioja was awaiting us. The night was so deeply silent that I forgot where I was: hidden in the crinkled mountain foothills of northern Spain’s Picos de Europa mountains.
A favourite memory of this visit was opening the windows of my room the next morning to reveal the high mountains peaks all lined up below the autumnal trees.
From Mestas de Con, Picos de Europa
In Spain, if you have grapes, you make wine. If you have apples, you make cider. Since there are no vines in sleepy Sirviella, they stick to cider.
Pepín told stories about childhood days, picking apples and crushing them. And of how people from the village would get together and tell the same stories, year after year, about the sweetness of the first juice and how bitingly cold those autumn nights in the barn squeezing the juice were.
From a high pass in the Picos de Europa
There is no better feeling for a guide than a guest's gratitude as you ease them out of their comfort zone, boost their confidence and gently push them to discover new views and new emotions.
Like the time when the rocky landcapes of a high Picos pass, on a seemingly dark and gloomy day, became the high point of a trip as the clouds broke. When I saw those smiling faces, I told them: "now you love the Picos like I do."
From a mountaintop in the Picos de Europa
Sometimes a moment comes together so vividly that we can freeze in time and go back there in our minds whenever we want. For me, there was a sunset from Collado Jermoso.
I, a man of so many mountain memories, felt overwhelmed by the natural beauty, by the light and shade and by the stillness of the silence. I realised that such moments are always happening out of sight, we just need to get up and go find them. For me, that's what travel is for.
From Mestas de Con, Picos de Europa
Beautiful places would not be the same without the people who live in them. In the Picos, meeting Covadonga in her small shepherd hamlet is the best way I know to understand the culture that transformed the landscape. I listened to her stories, sampled the delicious Gamoneu cheese and enjoyed her smile and true love for sharing.
This is a different kind of luxury - these sorts of exclusive interactions only made possible by personal connections.
The gentle clang of a cowbell; the aroma of cave-matured cheese; the colour of a spring meadow. However you explore, there's something in these coastal mountains to engage every sense.

Cheese and cider

You might not know this, but Spain does cheese better than anywhere else.
There is an unofficial number of 150 varieties of cheese in Spain, of which 42 are from Asturias, home to much of the Picos de Europa. So it’s quite possible that, more specifically, Asturias does cheese better than anywhere else.
Cheese is not only a key element of the Picos gastronomy, but its production has helped shape the landscape of the national park as we know it. As beautiful as these mountains are for us visitors, it’s not the easiest place to scratch out a living. The vertical hills are one obvious factor, the lack of good soil less obvious.
So for thousands of years, producing cheese was really your only choice, until some us caught wind of the beauty that lay within and started coming here to stretch our legs and look around.


Cheesemaking dates back at least 5,000 years in the Picos.
It’s a little-changed culture based on a semi-nomadic life that follows the seasonal growth of the grass up and down the mountain. In our 21st century world, ambling up and down steep hills with flocks of sheep and goat is both less fashionable and less economically rewarding than the trappings of modern life and the allure of the city. But you can still stumble across some of the last generations of families doing things the old fashioned way.
Whether you’re here to hike, explore by car or share some downtime with the family, you’re ideally placed, and in the right company, to visit the maturation caves high in the hills above small villages, meet the cheesemakers, and of course taste their wares.


Most prized of all the cheeses is Gamoneu - a slightly blue, nutty cheese made with the mix of milks from the cows, sheep and goats that roam in the summer pastures. The cheese is smoked in the huts before being put to mature in the natural caves of the Picos for at least two months before it can be enjoyed. It's a slow labour of love, and these days there are only five families still producing it in the mountains.
Just five.
We’d love to introduce you to Covadonga, one of those still toiling away in the art of cheesemaking.


As well as garnishing our plates with Spain’s best cheese, Asturias also fills our glasses with what may, or may not be, the country’s best cider, depending on whether you’re canvassing the opinion of an Asturian or a Basque native.
There might not be a better way to finish off a day in the hills than by visiting a traditional cider barn to learn how they make it and, crucially, how they pour it. Dinner here is all part of an espicha; the party of eating and drinking which accompanies the opening of cider barrels every spring.
In all but the steadiest hands, the pouring seems to us to be a spectacular way of spilling cider all over the place as you struggle to aim the liquid into your glass, held at waist height in one hand, whilst the other tilts the bottle from as high up as your arm can reach and lets it flow. Rather than (or perhaps as well as) making you look ridiculous, the idea is to splash the liquid around, in the glass not on the floor, as much as possible to oxygenate it and release the flavour and aromas.
Either way, best practice at home with water, as the locals say.
Picos de Europa Inn to Inn Walking Holiday
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£1,300 ppn/a
- 8 days
Picos de Europa Inn to Inn Walking Holiday
When: Apr-Jun; Sep-Nov
Price: £1,300 per person
Duration: 8 days
Walk between rural inns, and from mountain to meadow to medieval village, on the richest and most varied Picos experience you can have on two feet.
Picos de Europa Family Adventure
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£1,560 pp$2,050 pp€1,690 ppn/a
- 11 days
Picos de Europa Family Adventure
When: Apr-Oct
Price: £1,560 per person
Duration: 11 days
Giggle down a river canyon, amble across alpine meadows, linger over delicious dinners. Come make memories together in these beautiful coastal mountains.
Asturias to Cantabria: Drive & Explore Holiday
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£1,500 ppn/a
- 11 days
Asturias to Cantabria: Drive & Explore Holiday
When: Apr-Jun; Sep-Nov
Guide price: £1,500 per person
Duration: 11 days
Green pastures to golden sands; scenic backroads to mountain trails; rural villages to rushing rivers. Enjoy it all in this peaceful pocket of northern Spain.
Travel Positive with Pura Aventura
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Your holiday will be deeply rooted into its local surroundings, from the people you meet and the places you stay, to the food on your plate and the wine in your glass.



