Boog's Blog

Off to Santillana del Mar leaving from possibly the most modern, clean and services friendly bus station.

http://fr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santillana_del_Mar

Old church of course. No fotos allowed link instead.

http://www.santillana-del-mar.com/english/collegiate.htm

With the paleo caves,Altamira, close by and very similar to Chauvet in France well covered in the W.Herzog film.

http://museodealtamira.mcu.es

A really fine exhibition/recreation of the caves with multimedia. Then a museum with paleo art, cave culture, clothing, tools, and more. Yes, a very good ball of string.

Pictures and multimedia exhibits from dozens and dozens of caves around the world.

Additional pics on flickr.

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Yes there are no bananas. Similarly no fruit other than kiwi and excellent Valencia oranges which are juicy eating apples here.

Wandered around to see local sites. Very windy. Wet feet at one point.

Next to the raft are replicas of Columbus's ships.

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Further westward on the Way.

This should be a peaceful walk, not!

For the first hour we were serenaded by the convocation of trucks and their loud blasting horns. then at the cathedral (with its fine retablo) of saint inglesia Sunday call to service bell ringing. a very much not peaceful walk.

leaving town another busy noisy road.. We turned around after a while and headed back.

An organ recital at the cathedral. So, after a break at the hotel back to the centro, five km or so. Escalonia de Astillero. The chorus was amazingly bright in sound.

http://www.catedraldesantander.es/es/tardes-musicales/

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Bus to Santander. ALSA has three classes, the third is over the top with personal service onboard. Went steerage which was fine.

Spain, at least in the North, has excellent public and private bus lines. Metro is fast and clean and easy to use as are the local ones; even with my limited Spanish.

We are now in Cantabria. No longer pintxos, pinchos here.

The beach is a beach, marina, working port and a multi km strolling seafront. Parks, restaurants, boats, dog park, hotels and more.

Dinner time has moved to 9 pm s the starting time. Unless one is in the centro where pinchos are available all day hard to get eats between 4pm and 9pm. We are at the beach a good ways from centro.

Picnic dinner from the supermercado. Roasted peppers, cheese, bread, gazpacho, fruit. Qb had some cereal and yogurt.

During dinner a serenade by many trucks with flashing lights each truck spotless clean. A parade. Turned out to be a truck convention from all over Spain. A meeting.

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Suizo with butter. Basically a brioche sliced and buttered. In San Sebastian it was served plain or with chocolate. A bit too rich for us for breakfast.

Starting on the Camino in Bilbao we headed south west towards some industrial areas past the autopista. Mostly urban until then. Not a recommended path we wandered back via a more urban route.

A very poor,in quality, violinist playing a Stroh violin?

Final pintxos dinner at El Globo.

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Desayuno at cafe Iruna, since 1903. Not rude but certainly not friendly very well known in town. Enjoyed the experience and the coffee.

The book suggested that we take the metro out past the industrial part of Bilbao and head to Portugalete. From there we walked, for 10km or so, on mostly flat bicycle paths, no rocks or mud, out to the sea at La Arena. Restorative tapas and drinks before heading back via the metro.

Pintxos dinner at La Viña de Ensanche. Home of ham and a lot more. Rated number one on TripAdvisor. In addition to the wall menus an iPad was brought to the table. Menu in ten languages with pictures of each dish.

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Bus to Bilbao and then, a visit to the Guggenheim museum. It was and probably is raining too hard to photograph the front of the museum; try Wikipedia.

Giant Richard Serra piece, about six times the one at Stanford, same height and material. Far better echo chambers.

Neto piece required lying down to see. Other large works by Neto as well.

A break in the rain permitted a photo of the museum's exterior.

Pintxos dinner at El Globo; excellent peppers, prawns, jambon, and a slightly spicy vegetable platter with couscous.

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Last night in San Sebastian before heading to Bilbao.

With more rain and qb chilled did our Walking urban style. That and coffee shops and a final Basque dinner.

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