Villaviciosa to
Pola de Siero

This is where the Camino has various options to join the Camino Primitivo or continue on the Camino del Norte.

We had decided to head for Oviedo and the Primitivo, so we had a hearty breakfast in a local cafe and set off. The day started well, but cold, and a fellow Scot took a picture of us at the first fork to the Primitivo. We had a look around a little church, where unfortunately Sue left her map and a shell she had bought, before continuing onward on the Primitivo. We took a detour before San Pedro to the magnificent monastery in San Salvador de Valdedios , a fascinating place with a tiny 9th century church and a now abandoned monastery dating from the 12th to the 19th century.
From there we struggled uphill to a pass, with no coffee shop, only a closed garage and strong winds, where we ate our lunch on a dilapidated bench in the wind. The path wound down old roads to the valley, but from there we were on hard roads for some time - not shown on the pictures! We found a bar with a grumpy waiter where we had hot Colacaco and cake to keep us going, and saw some people from Lourdes travelling with donkeys.
After more roads, we stopped at a picnic area for a snack, where Sue tripped over a blue string and hurt her leg. After that we had less main roads, with some deviations on old roads and finally through woods and past a church into the town of Pola de Siero. (Apparently Pola de Siero was founded in 1270 on the site of a pilgrim hostel for the Camino ).
The town was large and not very pleasant, but eventually we found the hostel, and after some initial confusion were welcomed by the friendly hosts. We were given a menu card for pilgrim meals in a local restaurant, so we made our way to it, tried some local specialties, staggered back past an alien flying saucer, and collapsed exhausted to bed.