Europe 2024 - Year of the pilgrim: June 2024

We have spent a pretty solid few weeks engaged in reasonably vigorous exercise, so now it is time for a bit of rest and relaxation. I wonder how that will go.

Having finished our bike ride in Ribadesella, we are going to again catch up with C&S who have spent a few days in Oviedo. We will travel together to Madrid, where their daughter and Spanish son-in-law and their two children are attending a wedding. We will be tourists in Madrid for a few days and then head back up to the Basque territories for a few more days of being a tourist in San Sebastián. From there we will return to Cantabria to better acquaint ourselves with Santander, by being tourists, before we jump on a boat to Plymouth, England. All sounds very leisurely.

We are sharing an airbnb with C&S in the Salamanca district which is quite central to many of Madrid’s attractions. Armed with a tour itinerary kindly assembled by C&S’s daughter, we took to the streets. In the space of a couple of days we wandered through the wonderful Retiro Park, visited several rooftops offering great views over Madrid, managed a free visit to the Prado gallery (free entry after 6:00 PM), checked out the cathedral, walked through numerous squares and gazed at many monuments and impressive buildings.

We had decided that one of our Madrid days we would take an excursion. We were torn between Toledo, 70 km to the south, and Segovia, 90 km to the north. Eventually, we decided on Segovia. C&S’s son in law was quite excited about Segovia because it has a beautiful Roman aqueduct which he has always admired. This was enough to sway me. An ancient engineering marvel trumps historical political significance any day. I think Beth might have been a bit more balanced in her assessment, but she also thought Segovia might be a better option. So we managed to find a bus, which involved a metro trip to the bus station. We are pretty much experts by now at navigating European transit systems, so all went like clockwork.

I am sure I would be saying the same thing about Toledo if we had chosen to go there, but Segovia was an inspired choice and we had a wonderful day there. It is another very nice, very old city, and without doubt its amazing 1st century aqueduct, which dominates the skyline, is its centrepiece. But there was also a wonderful 16th century cathedral and the beautiful 12th century Alcazar palace (which is said to have been influential in the creation of Disney’s Cinderella Castle) to look at. We loved the aqueduct and took an age to cover every one of the 870 metres of its length and to marvel over its 25,000 granite blocks held together by nothing other than gravity. It is evidently regarded as the most important relic of Roman engineering in all of Spain. I was certainly awestruck by this amazingly intact and beautiful old thing.

After a couple of days recovery from our exertions with the bikes, and because our next walking trip was some time off, I thought it might be safe to use the gift of a largely flat landscape and our proximity to the very large Retiro gardens, to go for a run whilst in Madrid. I had toyed with the idea of going for a run along the beautiful river in Bilbao, but I feared the consequences if I injured myself and jeopardised our ride, so I reluctantly left my running shorts in the case. An injury in Madrid would be of little consequence, so out came the running shorts.

I had a lovely run through the gardens, and surprisingly, given that I thought all of Spain slept late, I was far from alone at 5:30 am. No injuries, and I didn’t get (very) lost, so an excellent outcome.

Many years ago we had a less than enjoyable railway station experience at Naples Giuseppe Garibaldi station which scarred me for life and caused me to rate that railway station the worst in living memory. Well, Giuseppe Garibaldi has now officially moved to second place and the title has been assumed by Madrid’s Clara Campoamor station. Our train to San Sebastián leaves from Clara Campoamor, which when we finally work our way through the building works adjacent the station and across the grubby forecourt into the station hall, is a seething mass of travellers hanging around the information displays waiting for platforms to be announced, generally very close to departure time. This of course means that there is a mad rush to then get to the platform on time, a pursuit severely hampered by a security system that insists on scanning bags before entering the platform. The entire process was chaotic, and to get to our train, whose platform is not announced until 5 minutes before departure time) we needed to participate in that chaos. Sometimes this sort of hurly-burly is a bit of fun. This was not one of those times. It was a huge relief to be sitting in our reserved seat far from the madding crowd.

Our train trip was quite comfortable and incident free, but it was quite a long journey and we didn’t arrive into San Sebastián (or Donostia as it is known in the Basque language) until about 6:30. We made sure when booking, that the hotel we were staying at had a manned reception desk that could accommodate our late arrival, and we messaged them to confirm our arrival time just ahead of travelling, so everything should be fine we thought. Sadly, not so. After walking up and down the designated street in the old town several times we could not find our hotel. After a little bit of consulting our notes and google we found a more precise address which led us to the very unwelcome looking locked door to what appeared to be a quite shabby and run down set of apartments. There must be some mistake thought we. But no, this was it. After some random pressing of intercom buttons we finally got a response from the “concierge”, who buzzed us in.

Things didn’t get any better once past the first hurdle of the door. All we had in the lobby was a dangerous looking set of steps and an even more dangerous looking lift. Certainly no manned reception desk. Eventually we worked out that we needed to climb the stairs to the first level where there was indeed a little reception desk, it was just a bit hard to tell because it was buried in a mountain of yellowing papers. From behind the papers a voice beckoned us to come forward. The voice belonged to the proprietor, who looked every bit as shabby as her surroundings. At this stage we were still trying to not judge a book by its cover, but beads of sweat were starting to form on my brow. After an age spent flicking through the paper mountain, poring over our passports and trying to convince us that we were not the Johnsons, she reluctantly accepted that we were who we said we were, and she took up a key and showed us to our room.

Things didn’t get much better from here. The room smelt bad and was not in good repair (think large cracks and holes in the wall stuffed with toilet paper, presumably to hamper the entry of vermin), and although the promised view of the old city was there, its spectacle was somewhat diminished by the pile of rubbish stacked up in the street outside our window. Not a good start. At least the bed was comfortable enough, but we lasted just one night of our anticipated four. At considerable cost we booked a very smart hotel not far away for the rest of our stay. Needless to say, we carried out a reconnaissance mission before booking though.

Despite the inauspicious start, San Sebastián provided us with a nice little holiday from our holiday. There is no doubt that San Sebastián is a tourist town. It is busy and it is expensive, but it is also very beautiful. We walked the length of both their beautiful beaches, the Kontxa, where the sun seekers and the beautiful people go, and the Zurriola, which is the domain of the surfers. At the end of Kontxa beach is the San Sebastián Tennis club which has a pavilion quaintly named Wimbledon housing a pub and restaurant. We pretended to be beautiful people for a short time and had early lunch with the restaurant almost all to ourselves. Just behind Wimbledon is the funicular heading up to Monte Igueldo, so no prizes for guessing where we went after lunch. At the top of Monte Igueldo is an amusement park which was not operating when we visited, but provided a nice happy atmosphere from which to absorb the wonderful views. There was also a fantastic 18th century lighthouse which we climbed to the top of to get a fantastic view across Kontxa Beach to the Bay of Biscay coast all the way along to Biarritz in France. We were also blessed with good weather so clarity of the views was splendid.

There was no funicular or any other sort of elevation assistance available for Mount Ulia at the other end of the Zurriola surf beach, so legs and knees were pressed into service. Hard work, but the views were nice and the tourist numbers much less. Most tourists it would appear prefer not to work hard for their sensory rewards. No funicular either up to the monument of Sagrado Corazón de Jesús, the giant statue of Jesus atop a very big hill between the two beaches and overlooking the city. Again, excellent views as reward for hard work getting to the top. The statue is within the walls of an old garrison which was very interesting to look around.

We did all the touristy eating and window shopping things that one is expected to do in a tourist town like this, and very much enjoyed our flash new digs, but 4 days was more than enough and we were happy to move on. I must however tell one little story which I found entertaining. San Sebastián has long beaches and paved promenades, so as you might expect, I took the opportunity to go for a run. You may well wonder why I choose to run at 5:30 in the morning. Well there are a few reasons. It is generally the coolest part of the day, which I prefer to run in. It is quiet, so you are less likely to bowl someone over or to injure yourself dodging people. Most importantly though, you are less likely to be laughed at and heckled by young whipper snappers unsympathetic to the limitations a 65 year old body imposes on the running aesthetic. Well, I set off for my run at just after 5:00am on Saturday morning, not thinking that Friday night revellers would be still out and about. Big mistake. There weren’t just smatterings of revellers, there were hordes. As I passed the La Perla nightclub with lights still flashing within and punters spilling outside I copped a little bit of good natured ribbing but by and large nobody really cared about me jogging past. Towards the end of my run, when I was possibly not looking entirely elegant, a young man yelled something in Spanish as I passed. I took no notice, and kept running, but soon became aware that the young man and his friend were catching me up and seemed to be asking me a question. So I stopped and let them know I only spoke English, lo siento, no hablo español. The young man, who was clearly under the weather, asked me what I was doing.

I am going for a run.

Why, it’s too early.

Well, I prefer to run at this time.

That’s not really running anyway, is it.

Well it is better than nothing and I enjoy doing it.

At this stage his friend apologised for his behaviour.

I suggested to the young man that perhaps he would like to join me on my run, which his friend thought was hilarious. The young man happily accepted my challenge.

I will run with you, for sure.

I asked his friend how long he would last before he had to stop and throw up, which he found even more hilarious.

Ok, well I am off, said I.

I returned to my run and never saw the boys again. A very interesting interaction.

For the second time in as many weeks Santander welcomed us with rain, perhaps it was trying to tell us something. The rain hung around, but was never bad enough to seriously curtail our activities. Having said that, we didn’t do much in particular. We wandered around of course, found a free suburban funicular and outdoor escalators to play on, explored the Magdalena palace precinct and visited the iconic Centro Botin building. Like the Guggenheim in Bilbao, this building was more the star than the art on show inside.

By this stage in our travels Beth was a little bit over Spanish food, so instead of searching for the best tapas bars, we went in search of poke bowl joints, which are definitely not on every street corner, but there are enough in Santander to keep us fed for the few days we are here. We also found a nice little breakfast place that served good coffee and avocado on toast. We are having a great time here, but we are missing our home foods a bit.

On our bike ride we passed through the small town of Comillas, which was favoured by Spanish nobility in the 18th century and boasts some wonderful old buildings, including one designed by architect Antoni Gaudi of Barcelona’s Sagrada Familia fame and is open to the public. Beth is a very big fan of Antoni Gaudi, but we really did not have time to visit the Gaudi house on our ride, so we resolved that when we came back to Santander, we would take a bus trip out to Comillas and spend the day there. And so we did. Comillas was quite amazing and the grand buildings were delightful to look at, but the cherry on the cake was definitely Gaudi’s el Capricho. Built in the 1880’s as a summer house for a wealthy businessman, it is more artistic than practical, almost a folly. However, in true Gaudi fashion, the house is full of architectural cleverness. Beth was enthralled, and she spent a long time drooling over this house. It was fun.

Just for something different, we decided rather than train, or plane, we would take a boat to the UK for the next stage of our journey, so we booked a quite flash cabin on the overnight ferry from Santander to Plymouth and arranged a nice French dinner on board. It was very nice and we felt quite special, but I don’t think it has swayed us towards cruising as a holiday option. Too much rest and relaxation for our liking.