Some twenty years ago we stayed in the Cantabrian Mountains for a couple of nights before heading south to Andalucia. We went to Fuente De but I chickened out of the cable car - I'd never been on one before and quite honestly this appeared to go straight up vertically - it looked like a lift dangling in mid air without a lift shaft!
The time was ripe to lay this particular ghost so, off we went for a grand finale for our road trip! The route south through the mountains goes through the spectacular
Desfiladero de la Hermida to the pretty town of Potes before turning west up the
Rio Deva valley to Fuente De.
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| The Desfiladero is just wide enough for the road, and the river which carved it, and runs between high limestone crags |
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| After turning up the Deva valley towards Fuente De the valley widens but the high crags are still very impressive |
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An earlier version of the cable car was this 1903 aerial ropeway built by the mining company
La Vieja Montañesa which carried miners and equipment to Fuente De. |
A variety of zinc blende/sphalerite called
blenda acaramelada was mined here, which can be cut as a gem, being hard, brilliant and with a lovely "caramel" colour.
The aerial ropeways developed here in conjunction with the mines were later used at tourist resorts. A fascinating insight into the development of something we now take so much for granted!
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| Early aerial ropeways built on the Fuente De model - this one at San Sebastian |
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| And this one across the Niagara Falls whirlpool, 9 years after the successful San Sebastian one was installed |
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The present cable car was built in the early 1960s and was at one time the longest single-span cable (1.419 km)
in Europe with a height change of 753 m. |
The views on the way up, and at the top, are superb.
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| Curly rocks from the cable car (tinted windows) |
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| Panorama of the glacial cirque at the end of the Deva valley |
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| And looking down the Deva valley |
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| Hard to give an impression of the sheer crags at the head of the cirque |
Once at the top there are paths leading away from the cable car station, and opportunities for bird watching and botany. The flocks of Alpine Choughs were particularly noticeable and splendid, but flowers easier to snap!
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| Info about birds |
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| Gypsophila repens |
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| Eryngium bourgatii |
This sells in gardens centres as "Picos Blue" eryngium
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| Gypsophila repens |
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| Many of the flowers grew in cracks in the rocks |
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| Ponies grazing, and hillsides dotted with little purple stars (Sue what was it called?!) |
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| Alpine choughs (probably waiting for a picnic handout!) |
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| And a lizard |
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| Meanwhile, back to the rocks.... this lovely weathering of limestone caught my eye |
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A short way along a side path we found some rock that wasn't limestone!
Bands of silt and black shale - something going on there in the depositional environment |
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| A quick search for fossils in the limestone revealed some crinoid fragments |
I was going to check out Google Earth for an image that I could include of the paths at the top but GE in their wisdom have used images taken when the area was covered in snow! Hmmm.
We got back to the top cable car station around lunchtime and enjoyed a snack and a drink sitting on the terrace with the splendid view in front of us.
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| The platform on the right is quite exciting - a steel mesh floor you can look straight through! |
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| Not checking her emails, taking photos! |
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| Time to go down |
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| The view from the cable car |
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| Half way! Perhaps have a go at that zig zag path next time? |
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| Finally back down the gorge to our coastal campsite. |
One more day to go and we've heard of a beautiful limestone cavern to visit, handily only just off the route to Santander where we'll get the ferry
That's a lovely reminder of our trip. Well done Linda for doing all this. I might remember some of it in a few years time.
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