The Best Hikes Near Casa Llenín: From Easy Strolls to Picos Peaks

You do not need to drive anywhere to start a good walk here. Close the garden gate behind you, turn up the lane past the last house in Llenín, and within five minutes the only sounds are cowbells and your own boots. Look for two stripes of paint on a rock, red above white. Once you have learned to spot them you will see them everywhere.

The Picos de Europa became Spain’s first national park in 1918. Its limestone massifs rise almost straight out of the green lowlands, which means that a short drive from the house takes you from apple orchards to bare rock and chamois country. Here is how to use it, from the gentlest day to the hardest.

Easy: from the door, and around the lakes

Several marked trails pass within minutes of the house. Some carry red signposts; most are waymarked with the red-and-white stripes of the Gran Recorrido network. They thread through meadow, chestnut wood and the neighbouring hamlets, and you can turn back whenever lunch starts to call. There are walking maps and guidebooks on the shelf. Open the Wikiloc app at the house and it will show dozens of routes that begin at the doorstep.

For something with more spectacle and no more effort, take the bus up to the Lagos de Covadonga. A circular path of about 6.5 km links Lago Enol and Lago Ercina across open pasture at 1,100 metres. It takes two hours, the ground is easy, and the peaks reflected in the water do most of the work.

Moderate: the Cares Gorge

The Ruta del Cares is the walk people come to the Picos for. The path runs twelve kilometres between Poncebos and Caín, following a gorge the river has cut between the western and central massifs. It was built for the maintenance of a hydroelectric canal, and it is cut straight into the cliff: through tunnels in the rock, across footbridges, with the water far enough below that you hear it before you see it.

It is not steep. After the first climb out of Poncebos the path is almost level. What it asks for is time and a head for heights. Walking to Caín and back is 24 km and a full day. Many people walk two hours in, eat their sandwiches with their legs over the edge, and turn round, and they have seen the best of it.

Poncebos is about 35 minutes from the house by car. Set off early. In summer the car park at Poncebos fills quickly.

Harder: into the high Picos

From Lago Ercina a path climbs to Vega de Ario, a high meadow with a mountain refuge and a view across the Cares to the central massif that stops conversation. It is a long day with real ascent and little shade, for people who walk in mountains regularly. Choose settled weather.

The most famous summit in the range is Picu Urriellu, also called the Naranjo de Bulnes, a 2,519-metre tower of limestone. The peak itself is for climbers. The walk to its foot is not: from the track above Sotres a path leads up to the refuge at Vega de Urriellu, where you sit beneath the west face and watch ropes inch up it. It is a demanding day and one of the great mountain walks of Spain.

For a gentler route into the same country, walk from Poncebos up the old mule track to the village of Bulnes, which had no road until a funicular was tunnelled through the mountain. Walk up, ride down.

Before you go

• Season: June to October for the high routes. Snow can lie above 1,500 metres well into spring. The low trails are good all year.
• Weather: Asturias is green because it rains. Cloud can come over a ridge in twenty minutes and take the path with it. Carry a waterproof even when the morning is perfect.
• Footwear: boots, not trainers, on anything limestone. The rock is sharp, and slippery when wet.
• Navigation: download your route for offline use. There is no signal on the high ground.
• Water and food: more than you think. There is nothing for sale in the Cares Gorge between Poncebos and Caín.
• Tell someone: let us know where you are going and when you expect to be back.
• The lakes road: closed to private cars on most days from spring to autumn. See our Covadonga guide for the bus.

The pleasure of walking from Casa Llenín is the return. Boots off at the door, the stove lit, the peaks you were standing among turning pink on the horizon while something from the market simmers on the hob. Tomorrow’s walk can be decided tomorrow.