San Vicente de la Barquera

From Santillana del Mar, the next stop was supposed to be El Capricho de Gaudí. If you've been following my journey, you'd know that the drive through Cantabria had not been all plain sailing. Well, this phenomenon would continue!

By this time, everyone was tired, I guess. Irritable. Sleepy. I don't remember what my navigator was set to, but it was probably on multiple destinations. Remember my advice on this aspect in my last post? My mind was set on El Capricho that I quite possibly forgot that it was in Comillas, and that was the name I should have been on the lookout for.

Had I got on the CA131, which was in my original planned route, it would have been fine, but I must have ended up on the A8. With the "co-pilot" sleeping, El Capricho must have gradually slipped away from my mind, which was concentrating on the road and not falling asleep, not to mention Comillas.

As time went on, I started to realise that I must have missed the turning for Comillas. Oh well. One stop less. We were behind schedule anyway.

With Comillas bypassed, I wasn't going to miss the next destination, San Vicente de la Barquera.

To be honest, I didn't find it the least alluring. Ok, it gave me a few opportunities for some shots, but that was about it. The photos probably did it more justice than what I really saw. Not knowing what the next stop would be like, and how long it'd take us, we paused for a short coffee break.

Some calories, some water splashed onto the face, and off we went. San Vicente de la Barquera was our last stop in Cantabria.

One of a series of shots I took of the boats
on the estuary at low tide

Santillana del Mar

After lunch, our following destination was to be Santillana del Mar, the village of three lies, so called because it is neither a saint (santo), nor is it flat (flat), nor is it by the sea (mar). Haha.

This was a day where I had to drive a lot, practically the whole day, and I was becoming increasingly tired and consequently, irritable. Navigating and driving are two things that I don't do very well together. One or the other, I'll get by, but both of them together? Mmm... So, we almost missed this village. Spanish is a language which likes to use a lot of words. Ever noticed their street names? Cantabria is relatively very small, but it turned out to be where I got "lost" the most!

There was already the previous episode. This time, I was too tired to notice that the destination had been unintentionally changed - this is the problem with touch technology and smart-suggestions software. One warm slip, and you'll end up somewhere else! As I drove on, I was thinking this doesn't look right, this is taking too long, bla, bla, bla. We ended up in Liencres! Oh-oh, I don't think this was part of the plan...

Eventually, we got on the right track again. Remember my mentioning the name problem before? Well, I was on the lookout for Santillana del Mar. When I saw the sign Santillana, I thought no, this wasn't it, and carried on. When there was no sign of Santillana del Mar, I said, damn, that must have been the one. Forget it. We'll go on. It's too late.

But, then, the sign to Santillana appeared once more. I decided to take it. Basically, we were turning back. Oh, well. In the end, I was pleased.

It's a very attractive village. It boasts of 'the prettiest village in Spain' title and, yes, it is very pretty. It's like stepping into a mediaeval village, its stone houses clean and well-maintained. We walked around for a bit, and so did a few hundred others. Yes, as should be expected, especially, this being August, it was full of tourists. You could see that tourism was the mainstay of their economy. And it is very likely that their summer trade tides them over for the rest of the year.

Let me share the photos I took here with you.

Typical stone house converted into a tourist shop right opposite the village car park

Lady catching some sun just outside her home

I though she might object to her picture being taken,
 but she was probably quite amused to be my subject!

The prettiest chemist's I've ever seen ;)

A hostel. The village is on the coastal route of El Camino de Santiago

The greens captured my attention. May be a good restaurant...

Colours and textures

Handicrafts

A typical cobbled street

Organised chaos. Funny, this. It's happened so many times before. No-one looked
up at this balcony. But when they saw me aiming my camera at it, it suddenly
became the focus of everyone's attention! Haha

A posada. Looks good.

From Basque country to Cantabria

I hope you've watched my video on The Oma Forest, published in the previous post. It's a sense of impotence I get whenever I feel like I've accomplished something wonderful and want to shout it to the world and the world doesn't share my enthusiasm... Never mind, I'm sure plenty of others go through the same situation... I think of the masters of the past, whose works had gone unnoticed until long after their deaths... Not that I would dare to compare myself with them, but, still, I take comfort. ;-)

Urdaibai Nature Reserve

Today, the destination was to be Asturias. Breakfast was served in the garden on a cool sunny morning. It was nice... I do not get the chance to breakfast in the open often and situations such as this remind me that I'm on holiday. I'm travelling. And I felt a tang of regret of not being able to stay here for more than this past night, of not having had more time to spend in the Oma Forest, of not being able to just walk leisurely in the open fields, in spite of my hay fever!

So, we set out towards the coast. The car felt good as we headed south first, then north-west. Passing Bilbao, we eventually caught sight of the sea, hit a stretch of coastal road, back inland again, until we arrived at our first scheduled stop - Laredo.

Wow. I wasn't expecting this. It has a beach that stretches to 7 km at high tide, so it shouldn't have surprised me to find that Laredo was very built up. A typical Spanish resort town. Lots of people. Even the beach looked full, so you can imagine how it was. I had no urge to stay longer then necessary. Stretched my legs for a bit, decided that our bowels could handle another stretch, and we moved on.

Cantabria is quite small. Before long, we were approaching Santander. I was caught by surprise. Got in touch with my friend, Noreen, to see if we could meet up but it turned out she was in Astillero. Oh, Asti what? Ok, fine, I diverted, drove on, came to a crossroad, and, hey, guess what. Typical situation here in Spain. No signs. By this time the GPS was going all haywire, confused by my constant deviations from the programmed route.

A piece of advice. Multiple destinations on Google Maps don't work so well. If I were to do another trip like this, I'd programmed each destination separately. I'd been sent the wrong way too many times on this trip. If you have someone doing the navigating, it may not be so bad, but if you're driving and have to be navigating at the same time, it can get complicated. Mind you, using the traditional map would have been far worse for me! Dangerous, even!

Anyway, to cut the story, I didn't get to meet Noreen. We headed on to Santander, drove around several times until we eventually spotted a car park. Headed there, got lucky, left the car. If Laredo was busy, what about Santander? Took a short walk around, and I actually found Santander quite attractive, and decided to have lunch here. We need to get to Asturias, remember? And I don't want to arrive too late. Haha, what a joke, right?

Sat down in a place called La Bodega, in Calle Joaquín Costa. Santander in August was terribly busy. Every place was full. We'd chosen to sit in the "terrace", which was basically a few high stools on the pavement. We were told in no uncertain terms that we could only sit there if were having a proper lunch. Tact was something the waitress didn't have.

Anyway, we didn't feel like walking off to find another place, so we sat, ordered a few tapas and off we went. Food was edible, no more. I'm sure Santander has far better places to offer. We had little time. There were still a few more places we would like to see before we get to our eventual destination.

Name: La Bodega

Address: Calle Joaquin Costa, 41, 39005 Santander
Type: restaurant, bar, tavern
Verdict: Walk on by!