Continue east along the Asturian coast to Luarca — a small fishing town built into a natural harbor so tight and steep that the village essentially stacks itself up the hillside around it. The harbor is at the bottom. The houses climb. The cemetery is at the top.

That cemetery is one of the more quietly striking stops on this entire route. It sits on a headland above the town, its white walls and orderly graves looking out over the Cantabrian Sea. Many of those buried here were fishermen and sailors. The view they have for eternity is the same water they worked. It is worth the climb up from the harbor on foot — fifteen minutes, steep, with a viewpoint partway up that frames the whole town below.

The lighthouse at Luarca sits on the same headland as the cemetery, a white tower above the cliff that marks the western approach to the harbor. It is not the most dramatic lighthouse on the route but its position — between the graves and the open sea — gives it a weight that the more spectacular capes do not quite have.

The harbor itself is worth an hour. Small boats, nets drying, a fish market in the mornings, and a row of bars and restaurants along the waterfront that serve whatever came in that day. If this is your lunch stop, order the fish.