Lonely rider

    Yeah, this week end was very good for a solitary journey, since rain was announced all the way down to Valencia. I had thus the choice between Valladolid (so popular that they don t even have local t-shirts) and catching a bus north. I chose path B, so after a virtual breafast I took off to Santander, a cantabrian city recomended to me by my coleagues as "they have a beach"

 

    4 hours later I was searching for a place to stay, greatly disapointed by the salty cold breeze coming from the foggy sea. I got lucky at the third pension I visited, some creepy place in an apartment building, where I was charged as a down-right tourist, because "es una habitacion matrimonial, chica". 

 

    I left smiling, as the sun was peaking through the clouds, and hence I was able to walk along the harbour and  tour Playa de los Peligros (the only one in this case was to die of boredom, since it was empty) and Playa de los Bikinis.

 

 

On my way I passed zee ugliest building I ever saw in my whole entire life (sorry people from Santander, but it s just plain insulting :D), Palacio de Festivales

 

And the wonderful beach...

 

    Walking up the coast, one reaches Palacio de la Magdalena, a 20th century building, which served as a summer residence for the royal family. Its style is "eclectic" as all the other buildings I have seen in the north. The palace itself is not very impresive, but the 270 degrees view over the Cantabric sea and the gulf of Santander is priceless.

 

 

 

    The zoo next to the castle hosts some sea lions and some penguins. I cannot help myself from posting this picture of "their daddy". This animal was huge.

 

    My walked continue to the beaches of the sea, Camel beach being the most beautiful one (guess where the name comes from)

 

    The cathedral downtown being uninteresting, I sat for a beer on some terace, just to notice amazed that rain has started to poor down. Having been able to find my way all day, ofcourse I had to get pathetically lost somewhere two streets away from the hotel, under a llubia de la leche, which called for a new round of tapas. I got home frozen and wet to the bone.

    The next day was "getting up very early day", to catch the next bus to Basque country, namely to San Sebastian/Donostia (recommended to me as "they also have a beach"). After another 3 hours of bus ride, intense hopes to escape the rain which poored down all night in Santander and one stop in Bilbao, just to pick up zee drunkes hoard of sailors we got to Donostia. You guessed already, I felt like being back in Neuchatel - foggy and sleepy and wet.

Even the houses were wearing  rain clothes ;)

 

So I went to see the famous La Concha beach, thinking to catch the bus at 15:00.

 

But as I was taking pictures of french people and myself...I think H. woke up and started sending good vibes in my direction ;)

 

And so my journey to discovering one of the most beautiful cities I have seen began...Again lounging 3 km of beach and building castles in Spain

Seing a nice modern art./half natural sculpture called The Comb of Wind

 Taking the funi up to mount Igeldo (the bay is guarded by two mountains - Igeldo and Urguell) to see the isle of Santa Clara from above

 

And going down for lunch of calamares and pimientos con bacalao. Yummy.

The city is fascinating by its parks and very nice architecture, but also for its bilingual nature (my culture was limited, I found out before going there that they speak a language of unknown origins). So I took this pic, just to ask Maddish - ziceai ca nu poate fi mai grea ca olandeza??? Io n as juca fazan cu oamenii astia :)))

 

    I will spare you sights of the cathedral, or of the Maria Cristina church, both precious and "eclectic" :). 

    A short tour of the "most modern aquarium" in Europe (but also quite small) ended my day in a quiet fashion

 

 

 

 

    I loved this last day, sunstroke/burn included...Too bad for all the tense atmosphere between the basque country and the rest of Spain (which in fact it s not even true, its rather ETA and the rest of Spain), because it s a wonderful region, with a lot to offer and a lot to see.

    I still have sand in my shoes....

    My journey ended apoteotically by falling asleep in the train ("ca o ciubota" for my romanian friends). Luckily the lady who checks the tickets woke me up, remembering that I was supposed to go down in Valladolid, otherwise  I would have written this post from Lisboa.