I left Santiago changing my heading for the final time: East! My goal was Gijon.

The landscape had changed again. No trace of the southern burning-sun-Spain. The vegetation was lush, the skies cloudy and the air damp.

I enjoyed the change and only hoped it wouldn’t rain as my jacket wasn’t waterproof.

Gijon lies on the northern coast of Spain. There are some nice old buildings but overall the city wasn’t too interesting and I only stayed for a few hours.

Gijon is one of the bigger cities along the coast and was on my route because of that and because it is the second of the two Spanish cities which are significant in Austrias football history. Earlier I had already visited Cordoba, the location of what is said to be the greatest game Austria ever played (“The miracle of Cordoba”). Well Gijon is exactly the opposite. It was nick named “Disgrace of Gijon” because in that game Germany (Austrias eternal arch nemesis in sports) and Austria both knew that with a particular score in that worldcup tournament game they would both be happy so they stopped playing after that score was achieved and the remaining half of the game was just an incredibly slow and underwhelming dribbling exercise with apologies for light tackles and no apparent desire to change the score.

Visiting the stadium of Gijon therefore obviously was a sad moment.

After this last stop in Gijon I set course for my last destination on my Spain trip. The national park “Picos de Europa”.