Awesome Weekends (Covadonga)

A couple weekends ago, I took a trip with some friends to Asturias, which is in northern Spain, and blue in this picture (sh... don't tell Mr. Hiliker).
We traveled by bus to the far eastern part of Asturias, almost to Cantabria, where there is an incredible national park (Picos de Europa) and we spent a day and a night in the tiny town of Covadonga.
Covadonga is famous in Spain for being the site of the first successful battle of the Reconquista, in 722 AD. The legend behind the battle is that the Christians were hugely outnumbered and were retreating from the Moorish advance. They were hiding in Asturias and took shelter in a cave to regroup and reorganize their forces. Here, the image of the Virgin of Covadonga came to the soldiers and inspired them in battle.
Today, the cave is a pilgramage site (Pope John Paul II took a pilgramage to Covadonga, and the current pope made it an official holy place, so that pilgrams who go to Covadonga receive a papal blessing). The town is mostly the sacred cave, the basilica, a museum and the tombs of some 11th century abbots.

Sacred grotto

A pool with really blue water (I think there's probably a lot of stuff dissolved in it since it comes from an underground stream). According to the stories, if you drink from this spring, you will be married within a year.

Here are several pictures of the basilica:

A statue of Pelayo, the general who defeated the Moors and became king of Asturias.

We spent 1 night in Covadonga and tried the local food. Asturias is famous for its cheese, cider, fish soup, and fabada, which is a really thick bean soup. We also had "tarts" for dessert, which were sort-of like cheese cake on a crust that was soaked in brandy. Our meal was very good and very filling.

The fish soup really should have been called sea-food soup.

The cider tasted like bad white wine, unless you drank it aerated.

Asturias is really rainy, so we spent a lot of time in this tiny little bar while we were in Covadonga. They had very cheap and tasty sandwiches and, most importantly, Cola Cacao, which is hot chocolate in instant powder form. Anyway, the bar at this bar (hmm... there probably is some sort of word-choice issue here), was made out of all of the different rocks that I'd seen in the area.
The bottom and the top is a read marble (the basilic is made out of this marble), the black stone is black marble (most of the rock that I saw in Picos was black marble or limestone), and the cream-colored rock in the middle is travertine (one very smart person guessed that there was likely some travertine in Picos).

There were also some fun rural things in Covadonga, like a house with farm animals in the front yard.
Covadonga is techincally in the National Park, Picos de Europa, so there's a lot of really cool things, like waterfalls and giant slugs and strange tress. Mostly, though, Covadonga was really, really peaceful and beautiful. It was a really nice break from the city.