Hotel Santillana Santillana del Mar

... swift action resulted in them being relocated underneath the van, despite the protestations of Lymºs board, which proceeded to lash out and cause him bodily harm about the head. (A: ha ha ha !!) However, all is forgiven and we all lived to surf another day.

A very pretty (cobbled alleyways, olde worlde stylee, cows in a field with not only udders, but also tuneful bells which, when youºve got a dozen, made quite a din a la Mike Oldfield) little town, unlike the campsite which was essentially a sodden piece of grass, for which we were charged Euro 22, for the pleasure of a night's shut-eye.

Leaving San Sebastian behind we drove to Santander to spend the night. With nothing more then the car, no place to stay and no plan. As luck turns out we found a cheap Pension to stay at, and ate in their quaint little restaurant, treated to warm hospitality, good food, and free Grappa and Lemonchelo

... things were closed. I checked out some toy museum, and just wandered around. It's a nice little town, but a little quiet.

Over to Altamira, famous for its cave paintings, the oldest of which date back 25-35,000 years, according to recent estimates. Supposedly the cave is only a 2 km hike from Santillana del Mar, but it sure felt a heck of a lot longer than that! My clothes were soaked, between my sweat, the rain, and the humidity.

Santillana del Mar, Cantabria, Spain and Canary Islands pwong

... structural frame was right about eye level when you were sitting.

Back to the pension, where I had a chat with Julia - she noticed a bit of a tan, and we ended up on the topic of my horrific Chilean sunburn, but I had difficulty describing it in Spanish. Julia asked "Were you peeling like an onion?" Such a perfect description of what happened! Except she should have said "Were you peeling like a deep-fried and burnt onion?"

Santander, Cantabria, Spain and Canary Islands pwong

... only at the distance between boundary of the centre and the boundary of El Sardinero.

Almost the entire walk between El Sardinero and the centre is along the ocean, either along the beaches of El Sardinero, or the harbourfront paseo in the centre. It's less touristy in the centre than it is in El Sardinero. I continued walking past the centre, over to Calle Vargas - there are still a few tourists there, but it had the feel of a street ...

... calm waters and sunshine and eating
breakfast watched as the hazy mountains of Northern Spain came slowly
into view.

From the deck, we watched Santander
come into view (Plymouth it isn't), long fingers of sand forming
miles of beautiful beach reflected the early morning sunlight, a
backdrop of green hills, themselves backed by craggy mountains.
Never having been here before and anticipating, correctly as it
turned out, that we may not ...

... things go wrong too. I leave my computer in the first place we stay in Cudillero, a fishing village not far from the airport. Fortunately the owner is very trustworthy and holds it for me. But its meant a wasted day for Terry and I driving back to pick it up.

We choose a reasonable day to drive 2 hours to Bilbao. Arriving in the city we get so badly stuck in a traffic jam in the city, that I have time to leap out of the car and visit the ...

... it wasn't the real thing. they had a walkway through, which is not handicap accessible, aka stairs. Along the different sides were displays. We got the tour all in Spanish, and it was hard to understand all of the anthropology terms in Spanish. I hated the set up because they start with this video of life through the ages, going backwards in time till it hits the cave in the earliest stages. Thats cool, but the cave its self is in reverse order. Like ...

... since we got there sort of late and were tired. On the second day, we had class in a really expensive room in a hotel, and then toured the city. The city was rather neat, with narrow streets and lots of people walking around. The view from our hotel was amazing, however, it was far from the main part of the city. Jim, mark, and I tried walking back towards the hotel after teh tour to find a finicular which takes us up the hill to our hotel. It turned out to be a long ...