Blogs from Cantabria, Spain, Europe - page 4

The sun still continues to shine on the BBA V3 although we wonder if by saying this we might jinx ourselves soon and the cold and damper conditions of those early days of our travels in France return again. We are still getting used to the sun rising so late in the morning for us. Today it is 8am as the sun makes it appearance over the highest hill to the east of us. The city are of Santander didn’t seem to have what we wanted in our sightseeing today so we plan to spend the time on the coast north of the built up part of the city instead. We retraced our path towards Soma as the shortest way around the Bay of Santander to get to where we wanted to be. On the way ... read more

We purchased two croissants yesterday in Pamplona to have for breakfast this morning instead of risking the toaster and we were looking forward to what we thought was going to be a sweet jam filled croissant. No such luck. The croissants turned out to be filled with a type of ham like material and almost tasteless cheese. We did manage to get them eaten but it wasn’t the delicious experience we had anticipated. We said adios to ‘Jose’ on the reception desk and he motioned something back to us that we don’t think we would have understood even if our Spanish was better. It had been a good stay in a very neat and modern room of a good size and of course the value had been excellent at the price paid. On the advice of ... read more

Geo: 43.1544, -4.64383We do like mountains, especially in fine weather - nature's theme park for thrills and spectacle. Over the years we have enjoyed the Highlands of Scotland, the Italian Dolomites, Austrian, Swiss and French Alps, Pyrenees, to name a few, but I only became aware of Spain's Picos de Europa a couple of years ago during our 'Grand Tour'. On that occasion our route meant that we would be visiting in late September and we didn't think the weather would be ideal, so we would leave it for another year. Given the climate of northern Spain and our departure date, we decided on a clockwise circumnavigation, thus leaving Cantabria until the end. Indeed, now that we have sorted our journey home by ferry from Santander departing on Monday, this is our last stop in Europe ... read more

It has been 20 days since we set out for our trek on the Camino Norte. Today we arrived in Vilabas early enough to locate access to a computer terminal...the first we have found since our last post 15 days ago. The Camino continues to be an exciting challenge as we move across the northern coast of Spain walking through countryside that has taken us through lots of small towns, villages and country neighborhoods. For the first 2 1/2 weeks our route followed the coastline on most days, with a few small mountain ranges thrown in just to help improve our endurance. Thankfully the blisters have healed and our colds have resolved, and we continue to feel less fatigued at the end of the day. Often we had the sea on our right and beautiful mountain ... read more

Santander on the north coast of Spain 8 and 9 October 2014 We arrived in the city at about 3.00pm after travelling on more excellent roads at speeds of up to 130kph. We couldn't do those speeds in our motor home!!!! Our hotel was right in the middle of the old town and was quite hard to find as it was in a narrow, old, but multi-story building and as we found out, all rooms had been renovated so quite lovely. The lady who checked us in could speak no English, but we managed all. That afternoon, with map in hand, we drove to the Peninsular de La Magdalina which had a Palace, and mini-zoo with seals and penguins, beautiful gardens (which included interpretive signs telling us about the vegetation) and a magnificent view of the ... read more

Seemed to take ages to get packed up and leave today and it was 11am before I paid the campsite bill and we set off heading for the mountains. We knew that Clarissa Tomtom was going to have a day off today as the GPS is very poor in the mountains and indeed we managed to miss our way in the first 2 towns we came to. Not Clarissa’s fault but our Spanish road atlas is 90% useless and will be heading for the rubbish bin when we get to Santander. Cangas de Onis was the second town we mislaid our road and looked a delightful place to stop for a visit but, like so many pretty and busy places with parked cars right down both sides of the road, not for us in a motorhome. ... read more