Next May we are traveling to Portugal and Northern Spain. We have everything in order for Portugal, but are trying to finalize our itinerary the Northern Spain portion of our trip, which is three weeks in entirety. We have three nights in Oviedo ~ we know it is not necessarily the largest city, but our first night we will be arriving later in the afternoon (we're stopping at Santiago de Compestela while en route from Galicia), and we will also day trip (at least half a day) to Aviles, where my family emigrated to the U.S. from many (many) years ago. Eventually our tour of Norther Spain will end in San Sebastian.
So ~ after Oviedo, we have currently allocated 2 nights in Cangas de Onis, where we will base to visit the Lakes of Covadonga in the Picos de Europa. We then have two nights in Bilbao, where we will primarily visit the Guggenheim, and we will then head to San Sebastian for three nights.
We are now thinking we may like a fourth night in San Sebastian, in general, and since it is (basically) the end of our three week trip. The only way we think we can make that happen is to only do one night in Cangas de Onis rather than two nights. The drive from Oviedo to the Lakes of Convadonga (which is past Cangas de Onis) is approximately 1hr. 45mins. Conceivably then, if we leave by 9am, we would be arriving at the Lakes of Covadonga around 11am. We're not sure if that gives us enough time to view the two lakes, as well as visit the Basilica and the cave all in that same day, or if we should plan on doing the Basilica and cave on that first day, and the next morning (after overnighting in Cangas de Onis) then head back out (because they're in the same direction, so will be backtracking from Cangas de Onis) to see the lakes, and then from there, continue to Bilbao.
Any/all feedback, to include if we should just stick to our initial itinerary with two nights in Cangas de Onis and three nights in San Sebastian, is appreciated.
Thanks!