We were really enjoying Santander and were somewhat reluctant to leave even though we need to get moving towards Galicia and Portugal, so we compromised by deciding to go to the market here, and doing our driving in the afternoon.
They have one of the old markets here in town that includes fresh fruit, meat, and fish stalls. Ton really loves these markets, so we decided to head there for the morning. Ton always asks how far things are away when we are walking, and Google maps told me it was 1.8 kilometers which is not too bad.
What Google maps didn’t show was it was 1 km straight up a steep hill, and .8 km down the same steep hill. It was a pretty invigorating way to start the day, but we eventually made it there.
A lot of these old cast iron marketplaces have been turned into major tourist attractions, with more tourists than locals looking at the wares for sale. But the one in Santander is not on the tourist itinerary. I would guess we were the only non-locals in the place. It is a little worn down, but we did enjoy browsing around looking at the different cuts of meat, and interesting vegetables.
On the way down the hill I had noticed on one road they had embedded escalators in the sidewalk to move you up the hill, so on the return trip to François we rode most of the way up the hill on an out door escalator. Ton thought this was brilliant.
Our destination today was based on traveling a good distance, and we selected a campground based on convenient access to the freeway. Greta struggled to find the entrance to the campground, but after some circling and a short dash down a narrow ally we arrived, just in time for a late Spanish lunch.
Todays 3 course lunch set us back €10 each. Again when asked what we wanted to drink with it we asked for red wine expecting a glass, and again today we received a bottle. So for €20 for the two of us we received a 3 course meal consisting of a seafood soup, or a ham salad as the starters. Calamari or a pork cutlet for the main course, and cheesecake or ice cream for desert, plus a bottle of water, a bottle of wine, and a coffee. I’m not sure where you could get a deal like that at home.
This is cider country also, and while we were eating we noticed everyone else had cider with their meal. In Asturia you pour the cider by holding the bottle at arms length from the glass as you pour it. We were guessing it was to aerate the cider, but it just might be a cool thing to do.
Ton found a cidery near the campground we can visit, so we decided to spend another day in the area to check iy out. In the evening we went down to the bar at the campground where I tried pouring the cider at arms length, most of it made the glass.
As we were walking back to François for the night we ran into an Irish couple we had exchanged Holas and then Hellos with earlier. They waved us over for a chat, and the next thing we new it was 11pm, and we had made new friends while solving many of the worlds problems.