Last day – off to Santander for our ferry home to England

---

Woke to a stunning blue sky which left pretty little white cloud crowns on the peaks of the Picos. So beautiful. This really is a stunningly lovely mountain range and we have enjoyed our visit.

Last day today as we now head for the coast at Santander and the ferry home to England.

I bought Bob a couple of emergency bottles of wine at the campsite shop and we had also planned to try the small supermarket in Potes on our way past but that was just not meant to be. Market day, right outside the supermarket and not a chance of parking Tandy so we drove past and Bob will return home, wineless, for the summer.

The drive out of Potes along the river valley, cut through the high towering rocks, was as dramatic as we remembered it from last time we took this route. Bob has to be so careful when the overhanging rocks are on his side of the road as he has to make sure with the 7metre length that the entire length is clear when he goes round right hand bends. A bit of a strap hanger in places but we know that buses and coaches use this route, as the only way to get to Fuente De, we just prefer not to meet to many of them as most stretches of the road are not wide enough for both of us. Fortunately the road surface was excellent nearly all the way.

The dramatic ravine eventually gave way to more pastoral scenes and a green river valley leading to San Vicente de la Barquera where we rejoined the coast line. A lovely little town on the river estuary but we didn’t stop as nowhere to park a Tandy among all the Sunday traffic. We stopped for a few minutes on the cliff top at Comillas, a little further along but were rather disconcerted to find it was quite windy. Something of note when we were about to take a ferry !

We did stop at Santilliana del Mar as Bob found a parking spot at the bus station. A lovely town, full of attractive and well restored medieval buildings, plenty of interesting shops. I bought a little ceramic owl in the same shop where I bought one, a slightly different design, last time when we stayed at the campsite in town for a couple of nights. We also had lunch in the same restaurant we used then as well. I had Eggs, Chips and :Prawns but passed on the Elvers which were also listed as part of the dish. Dead or alive I’m not allowing eels anywhere near my plate and certainly not in my mouth !

We only had one problem and that was my left foot. After I had showered in the beautiful campsite sanitaires that morning I reached out of the shower cubicle to get the mop to dry the floor so it wasn’t slippery for the next person. Ha. Forgot that it was slippery for me. My feet shot out from under me and I slithered down the 4” step from the cubicle landing in an inelegant heap on the floor. I am pleased to report that my only exclamation was “Oh Sugar”.

Have to say that walking through a village, where all the streets are cobbled, when you have a bruise on the top of your big toe, hurts. I walked quite a good part of the way carrying my left shoe.

I am also pleased to report that though my attempts to icepack the bruise were not effective, a couple of applications of Voltarol worked wonders. I swear by that gel for curing aches and pains.

And so to Santander and not an open supermarket in sight and believe me, we looked. We did manage to get Chris some cider from the garage when we stopped to fill up with fuel (which costs the same in Spain in euros as it does in the UK in Pounds). We had several hours to spare as we had allowed time for shopping if we’d managed to find a shop so having located the port, we drove out of Santander again and parked up in the hills for a couple of hours before returning to check in in good time.

Our ferry, as from France, was with LD Lines. A little cheaper than the other ferries and a little more basic but it had everything we needed. Just time for a quick drink, a stroll on the deck and then a long sleep in our cabin. 26 hours on a ferry is a long time. Nothing to see, except sea and not a lot to do except read and sleep. We left the ferry at midnight the next day and slept in the designated overnighting area on Poole harbour for which we paid £5.

Home again by midday after an easy run up the M3, A34, M40, M5 and M6. We unloaded Tandy, put things away and generally and unaccountably felt jet lagged.

Back to normal tomorrow.

......and probably the day after that we'll start thinking about where we'll take Tandy next.

---

Comments

[Home and Away]

It's been great following your travels...
and look forward to your next trip with Tandy.