Ponga

The road to Ponga starts to misbehave just after Cangas de Onís. First the tarmac narrows, then the river Sella drops away into a limestone gorge so tight you could spit across it. By the time the hire-car wing-mirrors brush the rock face in the Beyos gorge, drivers realise the map’s 30-minute estimate was fantasy. Thirty-five minutes later the valley opens, meadows appear, and a scatter of slate roofs called San Juan de Beleño clings to a sunlit shelf 600 metres above sea level. Welcome to Ponga—Asturias in concentrate, minus the crowds that swamp the Lakes of Covadonga an hour west.

Vertical Villages and Horizontal Time

Ponga is not one place but nine hamlets strung along glacial valleys. The council’s entire population—627 at the last count—wouldn’t fill a single Coventry pub. Houses are built for winter survival rather than Instagram: thick stone, wooden balconies deep enough to store firewood, and haylofts perched on mushroom-shaped stilts to keep out mice. Chickens wander across the single-track road; tractors reverse into passing bays cut from the cliff. Between settlements the forest takes over—Atlantic beech dripping with moss, yew, holly and the odd rowan flashing red. UNESCO calls it a Biosphere Reserve; locals call it home.

Altitude changes everything. At dawn in May the valley floor can be 8 °C while the coast at Ribadesella basks in 18 °C. By midday thermals rise, vultures tilt overhead, and the air smells of gorse and wild oregano. Even in high summer you’ll want a fleece after nine o’clock; night temperatures slip to 12 °C and the Milky Way arrives in full theatre lighting—no street-lamps, no neon, only the occasional grunt of a wild boar below the orchard wall.

Walking Without a Queue

The Beyos gorge is only the prelude. Footpaths strike straight up the valley sides like lines on a relief map. The Ruta del Arcediano climbs 700 metres through abandoned terraces to an overhanging limestone arch where griffon vultures nest; allow three hours up, two down, and add another hour if the mist rolls in—as it often does—erasing the path in seconds. Higher still, the summit of Tiatordos (1,707 m) gives a view that on a clear day stretches from the Cantabrian Sea to the central massif of the Picos de Europa. You will meet fewer people on the entire walk than queue for the toilet block at Covadonga.

Lower-level rambles are gentler but equally empty. From Casielles a lane becomes a track, becomes a holloway between dry-stone walls built in the 1800s to keep wolves from the sheep. After forty minutes the tarmac gives up and the hay meadows of Sobrefoz appear, dotted with stone teitos—thatched cowsheds that look like something from the Lake District until you notice the terracotta maize kiln in the corner. Turn round when you’ve had enough; there is no ticket office, no café, no gift shop—just the sound of your own breathing and a distant chain-saw.

The Sea at Teatime

One of Ponga’s quiet advantages is its split personality. Drive 55 minutes north and the road spills onto the coast at Ribadesella, a fishing town where the daily catch reaches the quay at eleven. Order a plate of grilled xarda (mackerel) at El Puerto overlooking the estuary; the waiter will ask if you want bread from the wood-fired oven down the street. Back inland for siesta, the temperature drops ten degrees and the evening mist drifts up the valley like steam off a pint of bitter. You can breakfast on the beach and dine beside a log fire the same day—try doing that in the Alps without a helicopter.

What Opens, What Doesn’t

Ponga runs on smallholding time. The mini-super in San Juan stocks UHT milk, tinned beans and the local Beyos cheese—creamy, faintly sharp, excellent with quince paste. Bread arrives on Tuesday and Friday; if the van sells out, tough. There is no cash machine: fill your wallet in Cangas de Onís before you tackle the gorge. Mobile coverage is patchy; Vodafone dies completely at the bridge in Taranes, EE limps on with one bar if you stand on the picnic table. Download offline maps and write down your rural cottage coordinates—postcodes cover entire valleys here.

Restaurants operate when locals are hungry. Casa Ricardo opens at 13:00 and last orders are 15:30; evening service starts 20:00 and the kitchen closes the moment the final dessert spoon is licked. Try the fabada (bean and chorizo stew) but ask for a half-ration—the full portion could anchor a small ship. Vegetarians get tortilla, cheese plate, and the best chips this side of San Sebastián. A bottle of cider costs €3.50; the waiter will pour a thumb’s-worth at arm’s length. If you wear white, stand back.

When to Come, When to Stay Away

Late April brings orchid meadows and the beech still leafless, so views open right across the slope. May adds cowslips and the first nightingales; walking temperatures sit in the high teens. October fires the hayedos copper and gold, and the Beyos gorge becomes a tunnel of colour—photographers arrive, but only at weekends. August is warmest and busiest: Spanish families occupy self-catering cottages, children ride bikes along the lane, and San Juan’s only bar runs out of ice by Sunday lunchtime. Even then you can set off at 08:00 and meet no-one on the trail.

Winter is serious. The road over the Pontón pass (1,320 m) closes after the first snow, usually mid-November, cutting the eastern valleys off except by a 90-minute detour through Amieva. Cottages rely on wood-burners; owners leave a sack of logs but charge €8 per extra basket. If you crave isolation, January delivers—just bring chains and a sense of humour.

How Long, How Much

Three nights is the minimum to justify the drive from Asturias airport (90 minutes). A two-bedroom stone house with central heating and a terrace overlooking the Sella valley rents for €110 a night in shoulder season, dropping to €80 in February. Breakfast provisions for four—bread, milk, eggs, tomatoes, coffee—set you back €18 in the village shop. Dinner for two with wine at Casa Ricardo rarely tops €45. Petrol is cheaper than the UK, toll-free, and you’ll use plenty of it: the nearest big supermarket is 35 kilometres away.

Leave the car in the lay-by at the top of the Beyos gorge and you can wild-camp discreetly; Spanish law tolerates one-night bivouacs above the tree line. Take your litter home—there are no bins, and the local council has better things to do than collect crisp packets.

The Catch

Ponga is not postcard-perfect. Stone cottages have satellite dishes; farmers park rusty Toyotas beside 16th-century granaries. Rain arrives without warning, and the only museum is a one-room interpretation centre that opens when the key-holder feels like it. If you need zip-lines, gin bars or artisan ice-cream, stay on the coast. Come here for space, not service.

And remember the first rule of the gorge: never stop in the carriageway to photograph the vultures. Locals round the bend in a Transit van have brakes, but they don’t have patience. Pull into the signed mirador, turn the engine off, and let the silence do the talking.