Sunday 25th May 2014
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| Camino direction sign |
We left behind Laguardia (AR's favorite town so far) and drove to Hotel Marques de Riscal in Elciego which is another amazing piece of architecture, this time by Canadian-American architect Frank Gehry. The main structure is wrapped titanium ribbons (his trademark) in glittering pink and gold colours to represent the wine and bottle and it stands out for miles
around.
Next stop was Santo Domingo de la Calzada which is a town that became a town solely because a guy Domingo set up a hospice for Camino travellers in the middle ages and the town developed from there. It was a gorgeous little town full of pilgrims all ages and backgrounds walking 'The Way' who had stopped for the afternoon/evening. We had a pilgrim's lunch (12 Euro for 3 courses including bread and wine) and a good walk around town and then drove to Haro, the capital of La Rioja region and checked into our bargain luxury apartment at 5pm. www.loszapatosmorados.com Very happy with it and a chance to get some washing done! Our balcony looks directly over a beautiful old Baroque style building that now houses a bank and a stork has its nest on the roof. There are storks everywhere around town and they have these huge nests on the old rooftops and cornices.
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| Paddock of peas with colourful border |
At 8:45pm we decided to head out for dinner. We have adjusted to Spain time; lunch restaurants open at 1:30 and dinner restaurants don't open til 8:30, thank goodness tapas is always available! We went to Atamauri, just around the corner with Michelin hats and good reviews. The restaurant part was closed (Sunday night) there were no other customers but there was a bar with tapas on display and a friendly barman (owner?). We decided to try the tapas and ended up staying there. It was great as the barman with virtually no English played charades to explain what each dish was. We had a Spanish app on the phone to help with some but we had a great night. Every now and then other groups would come in for one drink and leave which is what the Spanish seem to do. Amazingly two separate groups ordered a small beer or wine and then only drank half of it and left.
Watched "The Way" again the movie we rented for 48 hours on the Camino.
Monday 26th May 2014
Quiet day doing the washing and diary. Had a pilgrim lunch for 11 Euros. Three courses including bread and wine. We ordered the food and then the lady bought a bottle of Vino Blanco for SR and a bottle of agua minerale con gas (Mineral water with gas) for AR. You just drink as much as you want included in the price.
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Hay
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Had a walk around town. Around the train station are many wineries and the track was laid especially so this area of Spain could export its wine. AR bought some more fruit and the lady in the very small shop had to select the fruit for you. She was really old and reckon the shop hasn't changed for 50 years.
Had to work out the parking meter at 5pm. Would you believe on Mondays the meters run from 5pm to 8pm. Then on Tuesdays 10am to 1pm & 5pm to 8pm. It was very tricky to figure them out and had to ask a guy to help. Turned out I had to type in the rego of the car at the second screen and then print a ticket to display.
If you get a parking ticket you have to pay it via the meter - so really pleased I didn't have to work that out.
Vegetarian pizza for dinner at home for 11 Euros. Staying at Santander tomorrow which is back on the coast.
Tuesday 27th May 2014
Headed off for Aguila de Campoo with plans to find a church in a cave. Couldn't find it in the GPS so put in the tourist information office instead. The GPS then took us down some narrow streets and next thing we were the only car driving illegally through a market full of people which seemed to go forever but probably only 600m.
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Cool van
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They were very good moving so we could get out but also happy to let us know we weren't supposed to be in there. Lucky we have French number plates so they will get the blame.
Then headed to the coast to Comillas a resort town. It had lots of modern villas the first time we had seen anything built this century. It had a great beach too.
Drove to Santillas del Mar another pedestrian only medieval town, and walked around for an hour before heading to Santander where we had booked a room. It is a much bigger town than we thought and driving & parking is tricky. We moved some witches hats to park right outside the hotel and checked in. The reception guy said we could stay parked there for 6 euros if we wanted which was more than fine with us.
Headed out for dinner at 8:30pm and walked for ages looking for our usual easy tapas places. Ended up in the fisherman's quarter and choose a seafood restaurant. The menu was all in Spanish and much harder than anything else we have solved as it had about 8 types of fish we had never heard of and all by the kilo along with platters that could have been anything.
Sandy wrote down Fish-grilled-vegetables from the translation book and I helped by saying ensalada. We ended up with a big salad to share and then a lot of fish with a potato and a slice of tomato. It was good and a relief as we were hungry.
Haven't got anything booked for the next three nights after which we return the car back in Bordeaux before boarding an 11am train to Paris.
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Camino track marker (from opposite direction)
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The driving is going a bit better even though we had our market incident today. It is tricky driving a manual on the wrong side of the road and not understanding the road signs very well. Then all the little alleys and many roundabouts. Not many times in Australia does the GPS say 'at the roundabout take the sixth exit!'
The speed limit changes a lot from 120km/h on highways to 90km/h on roads right down to 40km/h in towns but lots of 70km/h when going over a bridge for example or 80km/h when there is an intersection or tunnel. And many of the Spanish seem to drive quite fast, ignoring any speed limit signs, especially if it is a roadwork limit.
The roads today were again immaculate. Hard to believe that not only the highways but quiet roads have no potholes and often 4 lane with fences.
Wednesday 28th May 2014
Detoured off the highway to drive through Castro Urdialez. Seemed a nice town but with the drizzling rain we opted not to walk the beachside esplanade. Drove on to Bilbao, a rather big city (population 350k) that is home to the impressive Guggenheim Museum (www.guggenheim.org).
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So many tunnels
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Another Frank Gehry designed building it sits on a 32,500 square metre site in the centre of Bilbao with one side following the waterside of the river Nervion, 16 metres below the level of the rest of the city, amongst other challenges for Mr Gehry. It houses 11,000 square metres of exhibition space on three floors. The day of our visit the second floor was closed in preparation for a new exhibition but we enjoyed the permanent exhibition on the first floor by Richard Serra "The Matter of Time", eight enormous steel sculptures. And on the third floor there was an exhibition of Yoko Ono's work, which really impressed both of us.
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