The Curse of the Blue Sneaker

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Geo: 43.3856, -4.29151

As great as Santander is, one of the best things about the city is its proximity to a number of great little towns that are perfect for day tripping. I originally planned to visit Comillas last year, but at the last minute decided to visit Santillana del Mar instead. So Comillas was the choice today!

I had an idea of finding a way to visit both Comillas and San Vicente de la Barquera, but the bus connections are terrible once off season hits. If I stick to the original plan, I'd only have two-three hours in each town. So the only options are to spend a few hours in each town, or the entire day in one of them. But ... Comillas was too pretty to stick around for only a couple of hours, so I ended up staying the entire day.

Cantabria is so beautiful ... I've never understood why it's not completely over-run with tourists, though that is probably a good thing. There is the idea that all of Spain is like Andalucia - hot, dry, and desert-like, with Moorish architecture, and the land of bullfights. Cantabria is almost the antithesis of this common perception - it's lush and green, with charming little hillside towns that look like they belong more in Tuscany, than any place in Spain. But perhaps I should stop extolling the beauties and virtues of this region, lest this relatively well-kept secret get out and it be turned into another Dubrovnik, bursting at the seams with tourists. Don't get me wrong - Cantabria gets its fair share of them, but it hasn't completely sold its soul to the tourist devil, and manages to retain its charm.

Back in Santander - grabbed my backpack from the Hostal and headed off to El Sardinero to go see Julia and check into Pension Luisito. I ended up chatting with an older guy at the bus stop and as I reached into my pocket looking for change, he says to me rather gruffly "What are you dong?" "Uh ... looking for 1.10 Euro for the bus?" "No! I shall treat you!" Too funny ... he comes off as a bit of a rough type, but is super nice.

Not only did I get a bit of a tour while we chatted on the bus, but more importantly, a little insight into life in Santander during the winter. Apparently, its climate is very moderate with average winter highs of 15-17 C, and it occasionally dips down to 12. Maybe I shouldn't yet cross Santander off of my "Places to Live in Spain" list, just yet. Of course, it wasn't great to hear that there wasn't much in the way of engineering jobs in Cantabria - his son is an engineer who moved to Barcelona for a job, but has been out of work since the economic crisis hit.

I hopped off the bus at Plaza Italia, and immediately had a bunch of those "Oh yeah ..." moments, recognizing and remembering so many things from last year, that it felt like it was only yesterday. I rang the buzzer at the pension, and saw a little ol' Spanish granny come up to the window, with her face lighting up as soon as she saw me. Julia told me that she kind of recognized my voice when I called to reserve the room, but that she couldn't remember exactly who I was until she saw me again.



But unfortunately, she didn't remember one very important thing - when I was here last year, we had agreed that if I ever returned, she will have found me a Spanish wife. Sadly, there was no Miss Spain at her pension awaiting my return on this evening 😞

Now, I need to bitch about something completely unrelated - I have terrible luck with blue sneakers. I bought a pair that I absolutely loved in Paris last year, which is rare, because I had been looking for years for a pair that I actually liked. I wore it about 10 times and the sole started cracking, leaving a huge hole in it. They were fairly cheap but still, I loved those things and they were already toast!!! Recently in Calgary, I found another blue pair of sneakers that I loved - this time, they cost quite a bit more and seemed to be much better quality. But again, they are wrecking! I first noticed in Barcelona, but the sole is coming apart completely - very shoddy quality, as it's cleanly coming apart from the shoe's upper. What to do? Thank goodness for duct tape, because while it isn't fixing the problem, it is at least slowing down the destruction of the sole. Sadly, this is the best half-assed backpacker fix I could come up with!

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Photos

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El Capricho, one of the only buildings designed by Antonio Gaudi that lies outside of Cataluna. Now anybody can tour the inside, but at one point it was a restaurant and could only be visited by diners. If you look closely, you can see the liberal use of sunflowers in the intricate exterior.

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La Croissanteria for breakfast at the bus station - this stop in Santander is turning into one giant case of dejavu, as I also had something to eat here last year! Of course ... it's dejavu of my own making.
Big strike against this place - the coffee isn't fresh, they pour it out of a big carafe and don't steam the milk fresh, either. I've never seen that in Spain before, outside of hotels. The chocolate napolitana wasn't so good ... it hadn't cooled sufficiently so it wasn't flaky or crisp. It's too bad because I had a delicious sandwich here last year, which is why I came back.

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Comillas - another milk vending machine.

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To be young again, and to be able to eat anything I like - a bunch of teens were in here buying "groceries", which amounted to soft drinks, cookies, chips, and cereal, which is at least somewhat healthy.

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El Palacio de Sobrellano - designed by another Catalan architect, Joan Martorell. Commissioned by the Marquis of Comillas, he never got to see the final product, passing away before its completion in 1888.

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There's a town named Cabezon de la Sal, which made me laugh - it means "Big Head of Salt".

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Doorway to the University - unfortunately, I never got a picture of the actual University, which is a gorgeous piece of architecture situated at the top of a hill overlooking Comillas.

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The town cemetery - morbid but once again, a cemetery makes for some beautiful pictures.

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With a view like this ...

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... time becomes unimportant. To make it in time to see San Vicente de la Barquera today, I needed to start heading to the bus stop at 2 PM. San Vicente will have to wait until my next time in Santander, which I'm not complaining about.

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Gaudi designed this gate to Casa Moro - if you look closely through the overgrown vines, you'll see a little entryway for birds, in addition to the gate for cars and the one for people. Gaudi loved to introduce little elements or references to nature in his works.

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This trip started with dipping my feet into the Adriatic Sea, and ends with me dipping them into the Cantabrian Sea. Given that nearly a month had passed since the first dip, that we are now nearing mid-September, and that I've traveled a significant distance north, this dip was into much chillier waters.

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Stunning rock formations at Comillas's beach.

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L'il Buddha says "WTF?!?? We're in Spain and you don't have Alhambra, Cruzcampo, Estrella Damm, or San Miguel beer, only Amstel and other foreign brews?" Making things even worse was the sour and terrible cafe con leche preceding the beer. The service was also atrocious at this beachfront restaurant, showing that you don't have to be any good when you have a beautiful location.

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Regma is a fairly large chain of ice cream shops in Cantabria - I find the place disturbing for its complete lack of gelato on display. How can you buy good anything good if you can't see any of it? It would be like making a business deal without being able to talk to somebody in person and look into their eyes. Of course, I've been desperate enough for gelato a few times in Cantabria that I caved and bought it, sight unseen. But I wouldn't have had there been a choice!

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Another shot of the El Palacio de Sobrellano, with a chapel's spire adjacent.

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Back in Santander - a little bacalao empanada from Diferente, a gourmet supermarket chain in Cantabria. They sell a great selection of top-end foods, so I expected much more from this mediocre empanada.

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Dinner at Cafeteria Orsay ... it wasn't quite as bad as some of the Logrono bread I've had, but it wasn't as delicious as the Basque bread I've had, either. I opted for the fried merluza, because I was sold on the salad w/ asparagus. Desperate for veggies!
The fish wasn't so crisp, but was juicy and perfectly cooked. Expectations in Spain ... you just need to adjust them somewhat. If you always expect good food, you will be disappointed. But if you expect bad food, it kinda works.

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Turron (nougat) and hazelnut ... not so good, the turron tasted a bit like flour. And where did I get this gelato? From ... uh ... Regma ...