Oviedo, Day Two

 Tuesday, January 13, 2026

I'm glad I set the alarm. I don't think my body was really ready to wake up;  but if ever I needed my morning yoga, it's today!  I've just gotten into the kitchen when Barbara comes in to make her tea. I jumped!  She got the cutest cup yesterday, with a cat riding a bicycle on it! I think she and Ole are going to walk into town this morning.  Jenny and I are taking the bus (she's being kind to me!) and I don't know Stu and Amanda's plans, but I will in a bit when they show up.  I think we're trying a new brunch place that people here have recommended to the kids.  Even Ole's Spanish professor said he should try it.

Barbara, like the rest of us, is a cat person and all three of the resident cats pick up on that!

Breakfast time!

Oh! I was wrong!  Ole and Jenny and I are taking the bus into town while Barbara walks.  Have I mentioned that Oviedo is NOT flat?  Barbara says it is like Pittsburgh, so she's right at home! We hike uphill to the bus stop and the bus is right there! I panic thinking we'll have to run to catch it before it leaves but it turns out that this is the end of the route and the driver will sit there another few minutes until it's time to begin again.  Sitting is a wonderful thing!

As we're walking we run into one of Jenny's teacher friends from work!  Oviedo is a small enough city for that to happen, yet large enough to have all the "big city" things you need, like wonderful restaurants and museums, a theater that presents operas and all that jazz! 

The juxtaposition of the modern and the centuries old architecture

Never seen a purple one before!

Jenny says that some of her teacher friends come her on Wednesdays for quiz night!

                                                         Ah!  Here we are!

We are, indeed, heading for the brunch place, La Gente Café, and there are tables available outside.  Jenny goes in to get menus and when we've decided what we want, she'll go back inside and place our order. Barbara shows up not very long after we sit down and doesn't even seem out of breath.

                          Eggs Benedict with mushrooms on hash browns instead 

                                         of an English muffin! Much better!

                          Look at the color of that yolk! Such well-fed chickens!

                                 This is a Ukrainian dish called Sirniki. Yum

The café certainly lives up to the hype! I'm sorry that Stu and Amanda missed it;  but they have returned to yesterday's bakery and the lady there who loves Ole and Jenny recognizes the kids and is delighted by Amanda's enjoyment of the baked goods!

After we've filled out tummies we set off to explore.  Jenny has found a walking tour of the statues all around town and she becomes our tour guide! Along the way we cross paths with the couple from the tea shop!  Earlier, when we stopped in so Jenny and Barbara could get a cup of hot tea, I showed them their photo from the other day and they were really tickled!  Jenny got their phone number and I airdrop it to her phone so she can send it to them.

                                                            Street art

                                                            The milk maid

                                                        The seller of fish

                                                      And mrs. fish seller

This church as not meant to be asymmetrical;  they ran out of funds for the second tower.

Vermouth comes in such pretty bottles!

All the planters on the streets are so beautifully decorated!

The city clock tower was added later.

Dress up your sign for Christmas! 

La Regenta

This imposing home was on Cathedral Square just ninety degrees from the church, indicating the importance of the family.

The pottery sellers, located appropriately enough in the market square.  There's been a market here for                                                                        hundreds of years!

                                                                     A handy lunch spot!

The outdoor stalls are temporary, being taken down every afternoon.  But there is a permanent market as well.  But everyone closes early, around two. 

                                                  Ole says there are a lot of these around town.

When it's time to find a place to sit, the kids introduce us to Casa Gonzalez Suarez, where we can choose from thirteen different vermouths! Of course we each choose a different one.  Ole orders his favorite, Picofino, I have the one he compares to a plum wine because of it's sweetness, Izaguirre Reserva.  He tells us that in most restaurants if you just order vermouth (in Spanish it's vermut) you will get Martini.  In fact that's the name on the glasses. 

                                   Our server wanted to make sure Barbara liked this one!

                                                                 Apparently she does!

                                                             This is the cutest place!

Our drinks come with an olive and orange slice in each glass and the table gets a plate of bollos, the little rolls with a bit of chorizo inside. Presently Stu and Amanda appear! We've all sampled each other's selections and we now offer Amanda that same opportunity so she can make a selection, or choose something new for us all to taste.  Stu has water.  He's commented before that the Spanish are under-hydrated and he's right.  In fact, a large bottle of water is more expensive than a similarly sized bottle of wine! 

When we've all finished, our waitress brings a tray full of wrapped sweet treats!

We continue our tour of the statues and whatever else we run across, including a one-room exhibition hall that belongs to the University of Oviedo.  Today it is showcasing the works of Marcos Tamarco.

            These made me giggle because Ole has a three-quart bottle of this that looks just like these!

                                                                              The Traveler                                                                       

                                                The details on the side of the union building

                                                                              The Reader

                                Stu and Amanda have a series of photos where they duplicate statues.

                                    The Campamor Theater, where "Carmen" will be presented soon.

                                                                         "Asturcones"

Jenny will have to go to work soon, so she stops off to get a sandwich, since she won't have dinner until about 9:15!   Before that, though, she stops into another bakery.  This one has a special cookie called a Moscovita and another called a Princesita.  They are both local specialties and certainly deserve their fame!  She then heads off to work leaving Ole in charge of the tour!

                These are thin and crispy and the little guys have three layers that melt in your mouth.

We're right by cathedral square and the art museum is right there.  It opens at 4:30 and is free!  It's not quite 4:30, so we stand around by the most photographed statue in all of Spain (or so Oviedo residents will tell you). She is La Regenta, created in 1997, and is named after a famous book and movie.  Even google's AI agrees that she is at least one of the most photographed public sculptures!  Stu comments that he and Ole had tickets to climb the cathedral's bell tower when he visited in the fall but that they didn't get to go.  Barbara wants to do that!  Of course she does!  She crosses the square to the cathedral to see if that's possible and it might be but not today, the timing is wrong.

By now it's time for the museum to open and we see the lady unlocking the doors.  We are the first to enter and we actually don't see a lot of other people the whole time we're in there.  It's a lovely museum and contains a lot of local artists as well as names that I'm familiar with like El Greco and Joan Miro.

                                                           Buena Pesce by Joaquín, 1903

                                                  El Descendimiento by Ricardo Mojardín, 1998

La Maga Circe by Luis Rodríguez Vigil, 1996.  Stu points out the symbolism from the Odyssey and Ole points the salamander.

                                  Toda la cuidad habla de ello by Eduardo Arroyo, 1984

                                                She just needs a cell phone - and so does he!                                               

We spend close to three hours enjoying the art and it's dark when we get out.  It's time to find a churro and chocolate stand in the park and Ole does a great job of handling our order, even answering follow-up questions.  We get a bag of twelve churros for dunking in the thick chocolate and a couple of extra cups of chocolate and find a bench. Twelve churros was the right number (almost like these people know what's right!) and we didn't really need all that chocolate.  Which doesn't mean that we didn't finish it all.  There aren't any pictures because by the time I had a free hand, we were all finished wolfing them down! Luckily Barbara was better prepared than I!

We thought we had dinner reservations but it turns out they are for tomorrow, so we go off in search of a restaurant.  I really want Amanda and Barbara to see someone throwing sidra (the local beverage of choice is apple cider and the art of aerating it is something to behold.  Faithful blog followers will remember learning to do it on the very first try!).  There is a whole street named Sidra Street so we shouldn't have trouble.  Our first stop is the place we thought we were going to, Tierra Astur, and Ole stops in to see if we're in luck.  And we are!!  It's about eight o'clock which is really early for dinner here and we easily get a table for five. 

The menu is the size of a coffee-table book, filled with mouth-watering photos and it's really intimidating! Ole says not to panic and we wind up choosing a plater of peppers, one of grilled vegetables, and a mountain of assorted grilled meats! And sidra for the table. And also two bottles of water.

Ole passes this way on his way to class and has seen the servers on Friday mornings taking sidra-pouring classes.  They have to measure the amount they pour in a graduated cylinder!  They have to be that precise! And the really good ones just look straight ahead, never checking to make sure they hit the glass. When you eat outside in a place with grass, they don't use the shield!

                                                     How to use your empty sidra bottles!

                              This man has a cachopo and I can't image that he's going to eat it all!

           The chunks of bread in the basket are HUGE!! And there are bread crumbs everywhere!

                     There is steak and ribs and pork and ham and chicken, topped with a roasted red                                                                      pepper and lying on a bed of French fries!

                                                                  We did a pretty good job!

You'd think we'd never eaten if you judged by the way we devoured each platter.  Until, that is, we get to the meats.  That's where we begin to slow down.  Of course, by then there have been about five rounds of sidra per person.  That's not as bad as it sounds!  Each pour is only about an inch in the glass.  But you have to drink it all and immediately in one gulp!

Jenny texts that she is off work and there is plenty left for her when we arrives.  And there is plenty of room for her at the table. Even with six of us, there is a bit left on that meat platter! It is ten o-clock and time to go home! Just a couple of minutes from the restaurant we pass the place where Ole has his Spanish class on Friday mornings.  It's really a coffee shop that part of an apartment complex and they sit around conversing in Spanish.  Ole is doing well enough that his instructor tells him he's only allowed to speak Spanish in class now!

Ole's class is where it says Vips.  The coffee shop is pretty empty during the morning when class is held                                                   and the owner is pleased to have people there.

                                             Sure enough!  There's one of those salamanders! 

We catch the bus (thank you to the goddess!) and only have to walk home from this morning's bus stop. It's begun to rain but it's not like a Florida rain.  It's more of a drizzle.  But the downhill slope is now wet and slippery and I'm happy to hang on to Ole's arm.  And use Jenny's umbrella! 

We make it home and the kids seem to be settling in for the evening.  Not me!  I'm going to bed!! I'm not even blogging!  This is being written Wednesday morning in the wee hours!  And I don't know when there will be pictures added!  "The Old Gray Mare, She Ain't What She Used to Be'!  (Y'all may not be old enough to remember this song!). It's been another six-mile day!

Pictures got added the next morning!