Hotel Zabala Santillana del Mar

Twas a rough old night as we free camped (including a wonderful fish barbecue) on Oyambre beach, and it soon became apparent that our surf boards were non too happy perched a-top the van roof; this to the extent that they attempted to become detached at around 5am ...

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

... English, they really couldn't respond. It was a bit amusing, because apparently in Spain, speaking quite a bit of English actually means not very much. So we switched back to Spanish.

Being Spanish architecture students, the conversation eventually turned to Gaudi, Spain's most famous architect, and then to Calatrava, probably Spain's most renowned architect at the moment. The subject of him designing the new pedestrian bridge in Calgary ...

... way back when I was going hard core with trying to learn Spanish, I did one Spanish course on CD that told the story of a Spanish family going on vacation. The whole dialogue was about taking a train to Santander, and talked about how beautiful the beach and ocean was. The name of the town stuck in my head and like with La Coruna, I told myself that I one day needed to visit this place. And exactly like with La Coruna, it far exceeded my expectations.

... side.

It was a very long trek back to the pension, and I was completely exhausted after. I'd basically walked non-stop for almost four hours since leaving the pension, with only a short break to eat the kebab. I'd probably walked over 10 km since arriving. It was a warm night, and there were so many beautiful spots to check out along the way. One of my favourite Spanish words is "Guapa" - it means beautiful, and it so perfectly describes ...

... I kid you
not). Young bikini-clad women climb on tractors with a vague nod
towards tractor welfare and cleanliness, reinforced when some nearby
farmers (they have to be, surely), spray them with hoses (that's the
tractors and the women both). All this makes for a tiring start to
proceedings and so whilst the “hosers” are resting, the women
(there's no rest for the women in Spain) are for some reason
compelled to wrestle each other in a ...

... I loved this human scale city. No building is higher than the church spires, and so many streets are closed to cars. The locals make the most of this and wander around late into the evening. It feels a very safe city. The city sits right on three beautiful beaches and the back drop are hills and mountains. I think it would e a very nice place to live. The food is also great with the basque equivalent to tapas lined artistically up along bars.

... Janice busts out the laptop and viola!, internet! YAY! Miango is PERFECT for us. Gorgeous beaches with a shallow area for the kids to swim in (they could walk for half a mile without it getting higher than their chest!). A large play area for kids. Plenty of good food and snack stands (ice cream too!). ... Just ideal. This will be a frequent destination for sure. I get some work done. We go in the ocean. We frolic. We play. We forget sunscreen and Ella gets ...

This was the quintessential backpacking day. When you think of backpacking it doesn't get any better than this. Me and my wonderful friend Danielle woke up after eating tortilla chips (a rarity in Spain) with salsa and bagged lettuce (yeah, so we're cheap) for dinner and headed out of Pension de la Fuente in Bilbao. We went to "Europe's largest indoor market" and bought some fresh strawberries-HUGE, MONSTER SIZE- and ...