As its name suggests, a change in the detail level over perhaps a smaller area. Maps are personal things, what suits one bod and one purpose might well not suit another bod or suit a different purpose.
My suggestion would be to buy a decent standard map at a readonable level of detail, covering a reasonably broad area of your intended total holiday. Then I'd maybe buy just one Zoom map of the main area you intend to ride about in. If you like it or find it useful, you can almost certainly pick up another area's Zoom map whilst you are there. Similarly, you might find some local map companies' maps in Spain, that are not so easily available here in the UK. If you do and you like them, buy one. Maps are cheap, after all.
If you download the FREE ViaMichelin app you'll get an easily zoomable map, right down to a pretty good local level. Will it have every goat track? No. Do you need every goat track? If yes, hunt out a map that suits you.
The FREE Michelin Travel app is also quite handy, too
Very well said Wapping. FYO Cabby the Zoom maps have more information for sightseeing, historic places, viewpoints, etc. as well as icons for most of the camp sites that are placed where they actually are located, as opposed to being plonked next to the village in whose municipal 'territory' - which can be huge! Note that in the Pyrenees editions the French campsites aren't included, possibly because there are so many!
Talking of goat tracks, trails, etc. bear in mind that in Cantabria trail riding is all but prohibited, not just in the Picos national park ...
Coming back to Riaño. This must e one of the most controversial locations in bike travel in Spain! I'm sure that if it were possible to do a statistical analysis it would be the most 'hits' - second only to Andorra perhaps (see the other topic for that1) - and further investigation would reveal about a 50:50 split between those who think it's an ace place to stay and those who think it's s****!
Why, well the obvious is that it's pretty darned ugly. This is because the original town, which was actually quite a 'town' rather than a village, was flooded in the gigantic reservoir scheme in the 1980's, along with six or seven other villages, and a complete new town was built above the water line and the inhabitants of all of the villages were relocated there. This folks who like their villages 'twee' will be sadly disappointed by present day Riaño.
Riaño cerca 1994, courtesy of Wikipedia
In general the positive comments about the place focus on the friendliness of the people, the good value accommodation and the great food and drink - it's also at a useful 'hub' for route planning. When I was thinking about this overnight I was put in mind of similar scenarios where by and large the people benefitted considerably in material terms - Mrs S's degree thesis was based on a case study on one of these, a 'town' called Aramunt, which although not submerged lost most of its land under the waters of Lake (
sic) Sant Antonio near Tremp, where we now live - and there are many more, including, somewhat surprisingly, Belchite - and other less well known places - where a sumptuous new town was built alongside the ruins of the original that was destroyed during the Civil War*.
But it's not quite as simple as that. Take a look at the Spanish entry for
Riaño in Wikipedia and compare it with the English version and a fuller story emerges. The project caused considerable outcry, including vandalism, suicides, and big protests and for a while even the military had to take over for a while - pretty heavy stuff in the most decade after Franco and the so-called** 'transition' to democracy! Less dramatically there were always winners and losers; in the case of Aramunt some landowners got 'new' irrigated terrain gifted to them while others were left without a bean - and thus departed to Barcelona and beyond, often making fortunes and now thier descendants are building f**-off second homes nearby (see below).
Back at Riaño, all that is history now and looking at the demography the population has continued to be fairly stable during the decades after a diaspora following the so reading between the lines a bit i suppose those that stayed were the ones who did well by the deal, either benefiting from improvement grants or being directly employed by the hydroelectric scheme - where the pay is great! - and the hotel/tourism sector will certainly have done quite well thanks to the improved infrastructure and the needs of the project itself during construction - so maybe that's why the welcome is so warm?
Widening the topic out a little. A lot of folks say that Potes, the other main base for exploring the Picos, is too 'touristy'. Well, it is, but in the same way that places like Kendall - my UK geography may be letting me down here! - is in relation to the Lake District. Yes, it's go it's slightly tacky side - and for those who've not been to Spain, the 'Costas' are something totally different***, Spain as a whole is just fantastic! - but in general it's a 'real' town servicing a real' population. And in fact riding around the Picos I often feel that the smaller villages really are too 'twee', complete with over pretty second home developments that crassly imitate the local architecture - the same thing happens in the higher valley's of the Pyrenees - and although there's no such thing as 'biker
un-friendly' in Spain the inhabitants of a lot of these types of places, with their Chelsea tractors gleaming on tier immaculate driveways, certainly look down there noses at us
guirris!
Phew, I'm beginning to wish I hadn't started this!
Regs
Simon
* it's well worth taking some time to stroll around the new town while you're waiting to go on the guided tour of Belchite's ruined quarter (it's controlled access now)
** some would say there is still no 'democracy' in Spain - I keep my trap shut in public on that subject!!!
*** and not all of the 'Costas' resorts are crap - I rather like Benidorm and shed loads of folks here seem to have villas in or near Denia - and don't forget the historic cities up and down the coast, including Tarragona, where I also live and am writing this now, within the Roman walls that surround the old city ...
