There is not a lot to talk about today. We shifted south about 150km’s to Coimbra. As we were driving we talked about whether we would take it easy for the day when we arrived or head into town for a recon before exploring it in earnest tomorrow. When we arrived the temperatures were in the high 80’s with about 70% humidity so our motivation for the recon was low. Then when we checked in the lady informed us that the bus drivers were on strike today so there was no public transit available. Since it is about 2.5 miles one way to downtown, it was easy to say that today was a day of rest.
This picture is from two days ago, though we did cross over that bridge leaving town. It had a really nice view.
The only thing was we had an oops moment with the road system here. I usually do a quick Google check before we enter a new country to make sure there are not any weird rules I need to know about. For whatever reason I did not do that here. The first toll road had the normal toll both system. Today on a freeway near the campground I noticed a sign announcing a toll and shortly after I saw a large bank of cameras mounted over all three lanes. As soon as we stopped at an Aldi for groceries I googled Portuguese toll cameras, and sure enough on a few of the secondary toll ways they have instituted a camera system and foreign vehicles need to register on a website with a credit card so that you can be charged. I think we will be ok for today as I registered a few minutes after I went thru the toll, but now I remember passing under a similar bank of cameras the first day and wondering what that was all about. So I fear there is a fine in my future for not paying a €2 toll.
The photographer in the couple spent much of yesterday complaining about the light. At the end of the day she was unhappy with most of her photos. When we woke up this morning she was very happy because the light was fantastic.
Ton really like these trees, and the way they framed Porto.
It really was a beautiful day, the sun was out and the temperatures where in the low 70’s. Having now figured out the ticketing system for the Porto metro we had a much smoother start to our journey, and even passed the muster of a ticket audit. Porto like Portland our hometown runs the transit system on an honor system. You buy your ticket, but there is no turnstile or other way to control access to the system. Periodically workers get on the train and ask for your ticket. If you do not have one than you are fined a substantial amount, I like that as it makes entry and exit to the trains much simpler and there is something about trusting people to do the right thing that makes me feel good.
This church tower was near the Harry Potter book store..
Our first first stop for the day was Livaria Lello which is a bookstore near the university in town. JK Rowling when she lived here and was writing the Harry Potter books was inspired by the interior of this bookstore for hogwarts. It has a beautiful interior with a wooden bridge/balcony that crosses from one side of the store to the other. Unfortunately there are a lot of Harry Potter fans and now the store charges an admission fee to get in, and even at 11am there was a line way down the block waiting to pay to get in. We are not Harry Potter fans so we passed.
Gourmet sardines.Cod and cheese croquets.
But the walk to the neighborhood was not a waste of time because in the plaza near the store we found a canned sardine store that we really enjoyed. In Brittany, Galicia, and Porto we kept running into these very high end cans of sardines. In the US we consider canned sardines to be cheap food, here they are a luxury item. We kept looking at cans of sardine that in the US would cost at the most a couple of dollars, and here they were around €9.50. Today the guy at the store explained the difference and gave us a chance to taste a sample. In the end we walked out with 5 cans of expensive sardines. Even if the sardines don’t taste 5 times better the cans are works of art in themselves.
The sardine store with someones laundry on the top floor.
Next door was a store called the Portuguese experience that we wandered into and ended up eating our lunch there. It was a simple lunch of a cod and cheese croquet and a glass of port. The building was really nice and we had a third floor dining area overlooking a square to ourselves. It was a simple but nice lunch.
Our elegant private dinning area.
Yesterday we did not cross the River Duoro to the south side of the river where all of the port wine houses are located. The river on that side is lined with many port houses. The grapes are mostly grown a few miles inland from Porto along the Duoro River valley. But historically the shipping was done from Porto so the major buildings for the houses are in Porto.
Replicas of port carrying boats that were used to haul the barrels out to ocean going ships to be shipped overseas.
Part of the reason we did not cross over was that neither of us are huge fans of port wine. But since it was a nice day, and Ton thought she could get some nice pictures of the city we went over there. We had walked past most of the port producers when we came across an old market building that had been refurbished into a food hall. It looked like a nice place to take a break and we sat there for a while enjoying a glass of local non-port wine.
This is an old market building that had been converted into a food hall. It was really well done and quite popular.
Next door to the market was a port house we had never heard of called Porto Ramos-Pinto. Ton liked the building and while she was shooting some pictures I went in and took a look around. It was a beautiful tasting room and the charge for a tasting was pretty inexpensive. So we decided to test our poor impression of port. Our tasting tray arrived with 5 pretty healthy pours of port which we thought was nice. Then a couple of minutes later two of the employees showed up with another taster tray with 5 more glasses and profound apologies for the misunderstanding. We laughed because we had no idea what the misunderstanding was but we appreciated their honesty and sincerity but were worried about the amount of wine we were now committed to drinking. We also were happy that we had a long walk back to the metro station to get rid of some of the alcohol after we were done.
Our unexpectedly extensive port tasting.Both of us really liked the art work from this advertisement from 1928.
Our appreciation for port went up quite a bit. We had never experienced white port before and found it very appealing. The red varieties were also much better than we remembered. In the end we are glad we stopped in at Porto Ramos-Pinto, both for the good service and the good port.
You are either going straight uphill or straight downhill in Porto, the only flat area is along the river.
The walk back to the metro was a slow one as the hills are steep, and we had a lot of wine to walk off. We both needed to use the bathroom when we saw a sign for the most beautiful McDonalds in the world. It was in a nice building and will have to take them at their word on its beauty, but we did appreciate their facilities.
This is supposed to be the most beautiful McDonalds in the world.
Porto turned out to be a great introduction to Portugal. It is the second largest metropolitan area in Portugal and compared to the towns and small cities we have been visiting feels pretty big.
An interesting block of apartments in the old town. The building on the far right is a Fado hall. Fado is the national music of Portugal.
When we were looking for a place to stay we couldn’t find anything close to the city that we were happy with so we landed in a campground in one of the outer suburbs near the ocean. When we arrived at the metro station we joined 2 Dutch couples and 2 German couples from the campground having a team meeting around the only ticket machine at the stop trying to decipher how to buy round trip tickets, much to the bemusement of the Portuguese who all had an app on their phone. We eventually conquered the ticket machine and were on our way.
One of the many buildings faced with blue tiles, some are just geographic patterns and some are art work showing religious or historical events.
One of the first things we noticed is that many of the buildings in town are faced with ceramic tiles. By far the most popular color is blue though other colors are used. My hasty research says that there is no deep meaning behind blue it is a stylistic choice.
The newest tourist attraction are replicas of Thai Tuk Tuks. Nearly every major tourist city now features a Tuk Tuk tour.
Ton handed me a list of places she wanted to see today. The first stop was the market which she told me had just completed renovation last year. The article she had read was optimistic as the market was still undergoing renovation. It looks like they are doing a nice job on it even if they are a little behind schedule.
A view of the city from the cathedral.
The next stop was the cathedral which had great views of the city. The exterior of the cathedral didn’t impress us too much and we passed on paying to view the interior.
You can get a sense of the size of the hills on either side of the Duoro from this photo and the photo at the top of the post, this is taken from near the deck of the bridge looking down.
Porto is extremely hilly the drop from the main town to the river is easily a couple of hundred feet and in a short distance so the climb is steep. Interestingly though the entire hillside as steep as it is, is covered in residences. I’m not sure how many are occupied these days, but the residents must certainly be fit.
One of the tile walls in the main railway station depicting various scenes from the history of Porto. Though done in medieval style, they are primarily from the 1800’s.
Ton wanted to visit the railway station to look at the tile walls there, so we headed over there before lunch. Porto is famous for a sandwich called fransecinha and we decided we would split one for lunch as they are huge. They consist of a slice of mortadella, a sausage, a piece of beef all covered in cheese with an egg on top and placed in a gravy with French fries. When Ton saw one she chickened out and ordered a much healthier plate of grilled sardines. I went for the fransechinha and enjoyed it.
My fransechinha. It was quite delicious and just a little over the top.
After lunch we decided Porto needed another day, as it was already quite late and we had not even made it to the other side of the river. So after a stop at the main shopping street lined with all of the luxury brands we headed back to the metro station. The trip back was easy and we enjoyed a quiet evening resting up for the hills of Porto tomorrow.
Most of the streets in and around Porto consist of paving or cobble stones. We have come across these before on pedestrian malls and occasionally for short stretches in towns. Here it seems to be the primary road surface.
The weather drove us out of Spain. Overnight and when we got up it was extremely windy, with periodic heavy rains. We were about ready to leave Galicia and head to Portugal, but the weather motivated us to get moving.
Because of the bad weather we even decided to pay to use the toll roads all the way to Portugal. The toll roads are very good, but quite expensive. The trip today was about 200km’s and cost €24. But today it felt like money well spent. We wanted to make a grocery stop out of town but weirdly all of the major grocery chains in Northern Spain close on Tuesdays. We didn’t know this until we had passed two major grocery stores that were dark and Ton checked the internet to find out why.
Our first day in Portugal spent at the beach watching the end of a storm. The waves were spectacular.
The other thing we experienced for the first time today was a time zone change. Portugal is on a different time zone than Spain. I knew this but in the heat of the moment forgot and was arguing with Ton about what time it was.
The Thai are taking over the world. A couple of days ago we ran into a nice Thai-German couple in the campground. Today while we were drinking our welcome to the campground Port wine, another European-Asian couple walked in. We laughed and said there was no way. Later down on the beach we saw them again and I asked and sure enough she was Thai. We were surprised when it happened the first time, this time we just laughed. They also live in Germany and have a cute 9 month old son.
There were several dogs enjoying the surf and chasing shorebirds around.
The surf was really running high at the beach and we enjoyed watching the waves break on the rocks. After spending 45 minutes walking up and down the beach we headed over to a waterfront cafe for some wine and to continue to watch the surf and the people and dogs playing in it before calling it a night.
While we were sleeping a pretty good storm rolled in. We had planned to go to Vigo but neither of us were terribly excited about it so the weather gave us an excuse to just lie in for the day.
This was as close as Ton got to the beach before the blowing sand drove her back to the road.
About noon the rain finally let up, but the wind was still blowing hard, we decided to head down to the beach. When we got there sand was blowing so hard that Ton decided we had better find somewhere else to walk so we headed into town. Things here seem to be very summer oriented. There are multiple hotels facing the ocean most of which looked like they were closed up. The ones that were open looked very quiet. I can imagine during the summer when all of the hotels are full, and all of the second homes are occupied that it would be teaming with people, but right now it is very quiet.
It was a rough day on the bay, it was hard to hold the phone still because of the wind.
Ton was cold so she headed right back to François, I extended the walk and found a really nice headland with a view of several off shore islands that are part of a Spanish National Park. I tried my hand at a couple of pictures but they are not up to Tons standards.
Sometimes its a small world. Today we parked early in a nice motorhome aire near Portonovo because the weather is atrocious out. What we thought was a passing thunderstorm last night was actually a front moving thru so it rained most of the night and into the day. We made an effort to visit a town on the coast but as soon as we got about 400 yards from François the skies opened up. We were just far enough away to get a good soaking.
Our original plan was to look for a winery to visit, but the weather canceled that plan. This vineyard was across the street from the campground.
At that point we decided we would hunker down for the day and get some laundry done. As we were setting up François Ton noticed another Asian lady in a RV across from us. Just as we finished the laundry we bumped into her on the road and exchanged smiles, then she gave Ton a Sawadee Kha. So in a tiny campground in a pretty remote part of Spain two Thai married to foreigners crossed paths.
We spent the rest of the evening chatting about our travels. Meow and Gerd live near Dortmund Germany. Ton enjoyed an evening speaking Thai, and we stayed up much too late. Part of the fun of traveling are the interesting people you come across. Ton was truly amazed to find another Thai and for one night there were more Thai in the campground than any nationality except the Spanish.
We made a short move south to a somewhat undiscovered medieval town called Pontevedra. With an early start we arrived about 10 am to an already full RV parking area so we guess it is not that undiscovered. We pulled into the last available spot and I was really proud of myself for getting here early.
The medieval bridge is still in use today as a pedestrian bridge and is surprisingly wide for its age.
After we finished our coffee we headed out to take a look at the old medieval town and the market. Unlike the market in Santiago yesterday the market here was really bustling when we popped in. It is primarily a seafood market and there were all kinds of interesting and very fresh fish, crabs, and shrimp on display. Ton regretted we did not have a good way to prepare fish in François so we moved on to the old town.
Part of the market in Pontevedra most of the stalls are owned by women.
As we were leaving the market a bunch of people emerged from a building with a bass band. Leading the band was a young couple who danced along to the music. We guess it is a local wedding tradition.
This young couple was leading the band down the street as part of a wedding tradition we think.
It was about 11:30 and we were surprised how quiet the streets were. At one point we came across a small tour group of Americans who were also surprised that the streets were so quiet but appreciated it after the hustle and bustle of the other stops on their trip. The guide said that they are happy to have tourists but do not want to be overrun with tourists like other towns. As the day wore on we were surprised that the most common language after Galician and Spanish we heard was American accented English. So at least the Americans are discovering Pontevedra.
We have been seeing these crosses all across northern Spain. Eavesdropping on a tour today we learned they served to orient visitors to the town, Jesus always faced inland, Mary faced the ocean, and the other figures represented services in town and the rough direction they could be found.
Ton had picked out a bodega which in Spain is a wine bar for us to try some Gallician wines. We sampled a few and had a nice sausage plate to go along with the wine. We took a turn thru the town as the locals began to go about their weekend business. Like all Spanish towns Pontevedra is extremely pedestrian friendly. We are constantly impressed how easy it is to move around on foot in Spanish cities. It was pretty warm today and the wine and sausages starting kicking in so it was time for a siesta.
The coat of arms of the city in the ruins of a 14th century church in town.
Later in the day we joined the rest of town for the evening walk before heading back to François for dinner. We were surprised when a thunderstorm rolled in and doused us for about 25 minutes but it did cool things down.
We liked this chapel on one of the main squares. It is a way station on the Portuguese trail to Santiago. This group of bicyclists had stopped to get their trail passports stamped, according to the sign they are only 67 km’s from the end of the pilgrimage.
We spent three days crossing the provinces of Asturias and Cantabria in Northern Spain. In Asturias we discovered another from of Cider that was different than the Norman and Breton ciders we had grown fond of in France. While the visits were short we enjoyed the two cities we stayed in.
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
Galicia was on our trip itinerary for 2022. It is a region of Spain that is heavily influenced by Celtic culture, and like several other regions has its own language that is commonly used.
It is home to the third most holy city in the Catholic church, Santiago de Compostela. Santiago is a pilgrimage city and every year thousands of people complete walks thru the countryside to the city, there are pilgrimage trails thru out Spain and France that terminate at Santiago.
Outside of Santiago it is not high on the tourist trail for foreigners, so it feels a little more authentic. It is a mountainous region with the mountains often going right down to the Atlantic. We enjoyed our time in Galicia a great deal.
We decided that Santiago deserved another day of exploration. But it was going to be a leisurely exploration so we slept in, and had a nice breakfast before heading towards the town.
A nice stall in the market at Santiago.
We started the day by heading towards the market. Ton had read last night that Santiago was trying to match the Barcelona market. It is a nice market but it has a long way to go to catch Barcelona. We poked around for a while and Ton was thrilled to find a paprika we had bought on our last trip. She loves this paprika and had just run out before we came, so now she is restocked with Tres Hermanas paprika.
This is a Santiago Cake, it is a simple cake made from Almonds. Simple but quite good.
My goal today was a churro. The Churros in Spain are quite a bit different than the ones we have in the US that we imported from Mexico. They are fried bits of dough but without the cinnamon and sugar, what they come with is a thick cup of hot chocolate to dip them in. As I enjoyed my churro two American women came in, one asked for a coffee to go which was greeted with a no problem, the other asked for a red wine to go which confused the girl, but she finally said she could do it, but only in a plastic cup. Ton yelled over to the one lady did you really ask for wine to go, and she came over and said it can’t hurt to ask. We struck up a conversation while there coffee and wine to go was prepared and they are on a Carnival Cruise and were from Indiana. It was a short conversation but the one lady was a character, and we got a couple of tips about places to visit in Portugal.
A nice garden on a square near the cathedral.
We decided to head over to the cathedral for some more pictures as today is much nicer than yesterday. The town is full of school groups visiting the area of all ages from kindergarten to High School. On the way we passed a busker playing a traditional Galician bagpipe just as a group of about 20 kindergarten kids went by. The teacher stopped them and told them to dance to the tune, most of them did a variation of what I guess is a traditional local dance, but one little girl decided that did not suit her and broke into an enthusiastic twerk instead, much to her teachers chagrin. The busker loved it as nothing attracts a crowd like a bunch of cute kids and adds to the tip jar.
An interesting statue in the old town.
After getting more shots of the cathedral, and a quick turn thru the old town we headed back to François for an early dinner.
The highlight of any trip to Galicia is a visit to Santiago de Compostela. The cathedral in Santiago is the end of the pilgrimage for all of the hikers whose paths we have been crossing over the entire trip. It is the third most holy place in the Catholic church after Jerusalem and Rome. The minimum distance you have to walk to be considered a pilgrim is 100km’s, though many walk hundreds of miles, and a few thousands. There are pilgrim trails that originate all over Europe and end up at Santiago de Compostela.
One more picture of the Hercules Tower. I enjoyed my morning coffee looking at the light at the top, but forgot to get a picture.
Our night in A Coruña was quiet with the Atlantic Ocean acting as a very relaxing white noise machine in front of François. We woke up around sunrise to take a look outside and see how the ocean looked, but there was a marine layer in place so the views were not very photogenic so the photographer (Ton) went back to bed, and I went out to enjoy my morning coffee in front of a 2000 year old lighthouse that is still in use. I wonder what the Romans who initially built the lighthouse would think if they new it was still in use 2000 years later. I expect they would be astounded.
Since we were up and ready to go we decided to head over to Santiago early and hope the campground would let us in. After fighting our way thru A Couruña’s rush hour we finally got onto the Autopista for our short 70 km hop to Santiago. We arrived and got our spot early, which turned out to be a good thing as when we arrived back from the city later in the day the place was full and people were trying to stuff very large RV’s into very small spots. It was our evening entertainment.
Groups of pilgrims covering the last few hundred yards to the end of the pilgrimage at the Cathedral.
After a quick breakfast we made the 2km hike into the old town joining in with the pilgrims for the last bit of the walk. The old town is quite large and maintains its medieval feel, but with the addition of modern tourism. There are lots of small shops and restaurants lining the old streets that wind thru town. We wandered around without a plan for a while, before finally consulting the iPhone to guide us to the cathedral square.
Another group of pilgrims near the end of the trail.
Twice a day they close the cathedral to tourists so that a mass can be held for the hikers to celebrate completing their personal pilgrimage. While we were waiting Ton enjoyed wandering around shooting pictures, and I took a rest in the shade.
Bicyclists in the cathedral square, they have to cover 200 km’s to get credit as a pilgrim.
The cathedral is not as large as I expected considering its status in the Catholic church, but I kind of appreciated the relative intimacy. While smaller than a lot of cathedrals we have visited in Europe it is still quite ornate on the inside.
These angels with their gold clothes reminded me of similar figures you often see in Buddhist temples in Thailand.
We spent about an hour walking around looking at the cathedral. They had many side chapels that added a unique character to the cathedral and I think we spent more time in them than the main cathedral.
The scallop shell with a cross is a symbol of the pilgrimage, and you see a lot of the pilgrims with shells attached to their packs or walking sticks.
The Catholic church has learned from theme parks and museums so the exit from the cathedral is thru the attached gift shop. Ton decided that our tourist gifts should come from there as the proceeds help preserve the cathedral so we spent some time picking up a few gifts before heading out.
The entrance to the cathedral.
We decided that a lunch was in order and Ton wanted to try a local specialty which is pulpo (octopus). There were multiple restaurants to pick from so we spent about 30 minutes window shopping before settling on a place.
Grilled octopus which is a local specialty.
We have tried a few meals now in northern Spain and have found the food to lean towards hearty. Things are simply cooked with minimal spices and often both meats and seafood are grilled. Meals are served with heaping amounts of potatoes. It serves the purpose but we think other regions of Spain have more interesting food.
Razor clams grilled in olive oil, simple but delicious.
Today we reached our second target for this trip. When we were looking at options for this trip it turns out both of us had Galicia in mind, so today we jumped on the freeway and headed to one of the most famous places in Galicia.
The Tower of Hercules. The rectangular part of the tower is about 120 feet tall and is Roman. The smaller part on top is from the 1700’s.
The Tower of Hercules in A Coruña is the oldest Roman light house still in use today. It is a UNESCO world heritage site. The lighthouse was built around 100 AD, and has been in continuous use since. It is built on Cape Finisterre, which the Romans believed was the end of the world. Since it has been in continuous use for 2000 years it has gone thru multiple modernizations, but the core of the first 120 feet of the tower is the Roman construction. It got its name from the myth of Hercules who is said to have slain a giant named Geryon who was preying on the local people. Geryon’s head was buried at the site of the tower and Hercules told the people to build a town here and A Coruña was born.
A sculpture of Geryon, the giant killed by Hercules.
The grounds are nice around the lighthouse with some artwork, and lots of wildflowers. A Coruña itself is not particularly inspiring architecturally, and most of the buildings look like they are from the late 20th century. The main square looks like it is from the 1800’s.
The main square in A Coruña.Part of the “road’ Greta Garmin decided to send us down today. We fit pretty easily.
We are parked in a parking lot tonight facing the ocean adjacent to the Tower of Hercules. Getting here was a bit of an adventure. The total trip was 278 km’s and the first 274 km’s were a breeze on a good Spanish freeway. The freeway ended near the city center and we were following Greta Garmins directions when I suddenly noticed all of the cars turned left. The lane we were in looked ok, but I suspected it might be a bus lane, but at that point we were committed so I continued on, she had us making a left in 150m’s (for an American think 150 yards). When we got to her left turn it was a pedestrian mall so we couldn’t go there! Luckily there was a roundabout just in front of us, and as we came to it I saw a sign saying buses only in 50m’s, so we went around the roundabout and doubled back to where all of the cars had turned left. As we approached the turn there were three cops near the intersection so I thought we might be in trouble, but they ignored us. Just as I was thinking everything was ok, Greta demanded a quick right turn. The road was narrow but one way, but I had a bad feeling. As soon as I looked at the map on Greta I knew the turn was a mistake as it was clear she had directed us into the medieval part of the city, where we had no business. Fortunately after ziging and zaging around and squeezing down one narrow ally we finally made it to the nice modern road we should have been on from the beginning and arrived at our parking place. Greta has been struggling the last couple of days, as the only way she would send us to the campground yesterday was the wrong way down a one way road. I’m going to have to keep an eye on her in the future.
Our free view for today from the front of François. Definitely worth the trouble.
Yesterday was a day that we had low expectations for and it turned out to be a great day. The walk to the market was strenuous but the return was fun because of the moving sidewalk. The drive over to Gijon was quick and easy. The campground lunch was cheap and we learned about another kind of cider, and it ended with us meeting a great couple that we spent several hours talking about travel and life in general. Because we had so much fun we decided to extend here another day.
The view going up to the cidery was beautiful, though I didn’t get to enjoy it much as the road was a bit narrow and the drop offs caused a few gasps from Ton.
The plan was to visit a local cidery that had good reviews to learn more about cider and have a lunch. It didn’t open until noon so we planned to sleep in. Yesterday afternoon there were a couple of pieces of construction equipment on site in the afternoon and it was a little noisy. Today about 9 am an entire road construction crew showed up to begin resurfacing the roads. On top of that they were doing a lot of maintenance on the shrubbery around the pitches so our quiet morning was interrupted by the sounds of heavy equipment, and power tools around us.
We headed over to the cidery a little early to get away from the bustle of the campground. It was a nice drive up into the mountains, though the last couple of km’s were on pretty steep roads. The place occupies multiple buildings in a small village. We wandered around for a while until we found the restaurant. We asked the first person we saw if they were serving lunch, she said yes and pointed us into the dining room. When we entered, there were a couple of waiters scurrying around, but when we asked about lunch we were told no. So we were a little confused, so we moved on. Ton said that there was supposed to be a store on site so we went off looking for it, and eventually found it. In the store we found a helpful person who told us that the tour we were hoping to see was only done on the weekend this time of year, and that the restaurant should be open. We bought a couple of bottles of cider from her, and then debated whether to go back up to the restaurant or give up for the day.
A sample of the sausage aisle in Al Campo.
We decided that we would use today to go shopping instead. We found a giant Al Campo supermarket where we killed about an hour shopping around, before heading back to the campground/construction site. We were both famished having had a very light breakfast expecting a huge Spanish lunch, so Ton whipped up a wonderful early supper and we settled in for the day.
No one does ham like the Spanish.
Yesterday far exceeded our expectations, and today missed our expectations. I guess that is life on the road.
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.
Our destination for the morning the market in downtown Santander. We didn’t realize it involved a 4oo foot climb and then descent to get here.
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 meat stall, you can tell this is Spain by all of the hams hanging. The Spanish love their ham.
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.
Cheese selection, luckily for us you can tell the type of cheese by the animal on the label.
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.
Thanks to the city government of Santander for the moving sidewalk on our return trip uphill.
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.
The starters for our €10 lunch.
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.
A couple of local ciders.
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.
We enjoyed our break in Orio but it was time to move on. After a couple of days of debate we decided to head to Santander as it looked interesting to both of us. The drive was uneventful, though the Autoway thru the mountains was very impressive with several long tunnels thru mountains.
Ton loved the colors in this little lagoon.
Our parking app warned us that the very well located aire here fills up early, and they were right. When we arrived there were only 2 spots available out of 24. After a quick break to finish our coffee we headed into town.
A statue to Neptuno Nino (baby Neptune) off the beach in Santander.
In a country of great beach side promenades, we think Santanders might be the best we have seen. The area behind the beach that is usually filled with hotels and expensive condos is a park here. So not only do you have the view of the beach but you have trees and various art projects on the shore side of the promenade. Combined with glorious weather this was one of the best walks we have taken.
One of the 4 beaches we strolled along today.
At the end of the beach on a bluff overlooking the harbor is an old royal palace with its grounds intact. We climbed to the top to take in a super view of the coast with cliffs down to the sea, and long beaches in between the cliffs. Ton mentioned that this place does not seem to get the international visitors that the Mediterranean beaches get and she can’t figure out why, though I suspect it has something to do with the weather.
More days like this and all of the foreigners will show up in this part of Spain too.
Having put in a good walk we decided we would treat ourselves to our first big meal of the trip, and settled on a 3 course set piece lunch. At first we were dealing in Spanish, and when he asked us what we wanted I answered in Spanish that I wanted a beer and Ton wanted a red wine. The waiter came back with a small beer for me, but a full bottle of wine for Ton! He must of knew it was mothers day in the US. Later in the meal Ton saw a cask on the wall and asked me what I thought it was and I told her it looked like vermouth. The manager/owner saw our interest and confirmed it was vermouth and asked if she wanted one. Ton laughed and pointed at her wine bottle, so he decided to pour her a sample which was half a wine glass. When all was said and done we had a three course meal, a beer, a vermouth, and a bottle of wine for €40, which was the advertised price, so all of the alcohol was included for no extra charge. This is the Spain we remember and love.
The old Royal Palace overlooking Santander.
After lunch was done we weren’t up for much besides a rest, so we headed back to François for a well deserved siesta. While I was resting both of the boys called Ton to wish her a happy mothers day.
Today is going to be short and sweet. We decided to take advantage of the excellent facilities here at Orio Kanpina to take care of some chores. So today consisted of cleaning the inside of François, and wash our clothes.
Ton liked this Basque fellow in town.
The highlight of the day was a trip into town to pick up a light load of groceries. Otherwise we spent the remainder of the day lounging around watching the Spanish families enjoying their weekend, and watching movies on Netflix.
We picked Orio for our destination because we like the campground, but also because it is a convenient place to visit San Sebastian-Donostia. This is our second time here, last time San Sebastian was one of our surprises of Spain. Neither of us had really heard much about it, and we really enjoyed it. It was our first exposure to the Basque Pinxtos, which are small bite sized sandwiches which we really enjoyed. Ton remembers the Pinxtos in San Sebastian as the best she had in Spain. Ton often says that the real test of a place is if the second visit is as good as the memories of the first. We were going to test that today.
The harbor at San Sebastian-Donostia.
The weather was much better than forecast so that was a good first step in the test. The stroll down to the waterfront was pleasant, and the beach was pretty, though less crowded than last time because it is about 15 degrees cooler. To make up for the lack of crowds there was some cool beach art in the sand. Our primary target for the day was the old town and Pinxtos. We spent about an hour exploring the old town looking for the perfect Pinxto spot. The old town here has a very nice character and is a great place to stroll and people watch. We enjoyed ourselves, and both of us noticed that for the first time since we left Paris, we heard other Americans as we walked down the street.
We really liked strolling around the streets of the old town searching for the perfect Pinxtos bar.
The place we settled on for Pinxtos did not disappoint. The big change from last time is that they no longer put the Pinxtos right on the bar and you go along and pick what you want self-service. Now they are under plexiglass, and someone has to pick them for you. We assume this is because of covid.
The entrance to our Pinxtos bar, it was as delicious as we remembered.
The bottom line on San Sebastian, is that it passed the second visit test. We were not as aggressive in our plans as the first trip when we explored both sides of the river, and climbed the hill above town to the fort. But, we enjoyed strolling through downtown and the old town, and the Pinxtos were still delicious.
The church in the old town of San Sebastian. Ton took the street photo above with the Cathedral in the background from the steps of this church.
Mission accomplished we headed back to the campground. What a difference a day makes. When we left the campground it was mostly empty. Today is Friday and when we got back from our trip to San Sebastian the place was rapidly filling with Spanish families. By the end of the evening the place was nearly full. There is a live band playing on the beach, the population has gone from mostly seniors, to young families with kids, and all of the grills at the campground are going full tilt at 9pm.
Cool street art in Orio, the scales of the fish are Sardine cans, and the gold heads and tails of the fish are from the tops of the sardine cans.
We are enjoying it, so we are planning to spend another day to enjoy the weekend scene.
In honor of Cinco de Mayo we decided to move to a Spanish speaking country. The next stop on our plan is Galicia in Northern Spain. Last night we had a debate as to whether to get on the road and jump down to Spain where rain is forecast for the next couple of days, or stay in the Bourdeaux region in France where the weather is supposed to be perfect. After a lot of debate Spain won.
François departing Chateau Marquis de Vauban.
The drive today was about 330km’s that was uneventful. It took a little longer than planned because we ran into a full on urban traffic jam getting around Bourdeaux. It took roughly an hour to cover about 18km’s (12 miles). After getting out of Bourdeaux our route followed the A63 which is like an interstate, but with tolls. The key is that it is only tolled in some areas. So Greta would jump on the A63 when it was free and then have us use local roads that ran parallel when it was tolled. By doing that it saved us €27 in tolls over about 200km’s. Just as I congratulated her for doing a good job, she suddenly decided to route us right thru the heart of Bayonne and Biarritz where we slowed down to a crawl. When I chastised her for her bad judgement, she retorted that if I wasn’t such a cheap skate and willing to pay a toll we would be tooling down the A63 at 95kph instead of crawling thru Biarritz at 15kph.
A nice side road in France on our trip to Spain today.
We arrived in Orio Spain about 3pm. We are in a campground that we had fond memories from our first trip to Spain. It is a small town with a nice beach and a relatively modern city center. The old town is quite small and completely dominated by modern buildings and infrastructure all around it. Despite that we enjoy the vibe of the place.
One of our favorite things about Spain is the sense of family and community you see when everyone comes out in the evening for a stroll and conversation.
This is Basque country thru and thru. There are virtually no Spanish signs in town. The conversations are again almost exclusively in Basque, even amongst the children and walking around town we heard as much English as Spanish being spoken. Basque is a tongue twister of a language and Ton and I had fun trying to pronounce the names on the signs.
Ton said the laundry on the balconies reminded her of Hong Kong. The sign is for a fruit stand.
The next couple days will be a lot of driving. We are looking at covering about 300km’s per day as we aim for Galicia. Today we covered that distance in about 5 hours. I have been getting cocky about squeezing down tight roads in François, today we came around a corner on a narrow road and there were 4 work vans in a row coming at us, the second van and I tapped wing mirrors as we passed each other. The damage was really minimal, but it woke me up for the rest of the drive.
The Chateau Marquis de Vaubin our campground for the night.
We did have a place in mind for the end of the day. Ton rarely wants to revisit a place, but she did ask that we return to the Chateau Marquis de Vauban winery in Blaye. On our second trip to France we stumbled by here. It is a nice winery that allows about 20 RV’s to stay on site. We settled in facing the vineyards, and then attended a tasting.
One of our favorite plants. This one is approximately 50 years old.
Blaye is famous as the site of a giant fort that for 300 years defended the river approach to Bordeaux. Ton agreed to walk down there but did not want to spend a lot of time as she has had enough of forts.
Part of the fort. It is really immense.
We settled in early and watched the ducks and geese in the stream behind the van.
The designer of the fort. He is said to have stayed in the chateau at the winery while he supervised the construction.
After a wonderful time in Brittany it was time to begin setting south for Spain. We are not in a big hurry so today we headed south 200 km’s to Nourmoutier en Ille. Today was the day of deviations, which is French for detour. We encountered 3 in the drive. Like the US the French are hit or miss on marking the detour. Today one was poorly marked but my instinct and Greta Garmin got us thru it perfectly. The last two were pretty well marked, one was a bit narrow going thru a town, the other was easy once I circled a roundabout 3 times while Ton interpreted signs for me to find the right exit .
Some of the salt marshes near Nourmentier.
Nourmoutier en Ille is out on a prominent peninsula into the Atlantic, but surrounded by miles of salt marshes. There is an island on the peninsula that is accessible by road at low tide, but the road is covered by water at high tide. They have an annual race where runners race the tide as it comes in to cross the road before it is covered by water. I assume they have rescue boats standing by to pick up the losers.
Tractor hauling oysters from the managed beds at the end of the estuary.
It is a nice town and we enjoyed a long walk along a jetty out into the bay with salt making fields on one side and the estuary on the other. The jetty is about 1 mile long and topped with a road where tractors hauling oysters from the oyster beds in the estuary to the processing plants in town pass every few minutes. When we walked in the afternoon the tide was out and the boats in the harbor were sitting on mud, the estuary leading into the harbor was all mud and not very pretty. We decided to take an evening walk and the tide had come in and all of the boats in the harbor were floating and the estuary when covered with water was beautiful .
The view of the harbor when the tide is out.The same harbor 6 hours later with the tide in.
The aire in town is a big parking lot with about 35 other RV’s tonight. The other deviation today was that when I went to pay the €8 for the aire the machine would not take any of our credit cards. We run into this problem occasionally at gas stations because American credit cards still require a signature, European ones do not. This means sometimes at self-service machines our cards are rejected because no one can take the signature. It does not happen often but is a pain when it does. I assumed that was the problem, but when I went back to try with a debit card there were three French people there having the same problem. Finally one of them declared Le Aire est Libre aujourd’hui (the parking is free today). We all cheered and headed back to our RV’s with €8 extra in our pockets!
