Day 46 – 24 August 2023 – Santander, Spain

Another nice breakfast with some delicious Iberico ham this time as well as most of the usual nice food. Interestingly though, no cheeses. We are away early this morning as we want to get to our first destination before all the tourists do. Santa Cueva de Covadonga is a holy site that is very important in Christian history & is located in a cave above a pool high in the mountains of Picos de Europa. The roads are narrow & along the way we pass lots of adventure businesses with lots of canoes for tourists to hire & paddle down the shallow river. We also pass lots of eucalyptus tree plantations stretching across the sides of hills & mountains.

Our bus driver again does a marvellous job getting us up the very narrow road with other traffic. As we get to the top we spot the chapel tucked into the cave in the hillside & then we see the old large church on top of the hill associated with the chapel (the chapel is the important site). As soon as we are dropped off we head along the path to the chapel, passing through a large tunnel cut through the cliff that has been cut to allow tourists to visit the chapel easily. There are only a handful of tourists at the small chapel, plus two nuns. The chapel is special, it has a simple alter stuck inside this short cave looking out at some magnificent mountains, one can feel closer to God here than in those gold gilded churches. Apparently later during the day it gets very crowded.

Next we visit the church, the Basilica de Santa Maria la Real de Covadonga. This is a nice church in a great location on the end of a high ridge overlooking the valley. Inside is simple & we have a short look around.  We walk over to the other end of the site, past the museum & notice that more & more people are coming up. They are not allowed to drive their cars so they are coming up from the nearby towns by the busload. Police are directing traffic to enable the buses to get up & down the mountain road safely.

After we get off the mountain we are held up & stopped on the road for a long time, it is a big traffic jam from all the people wanting to visit. There are hundreds & hundreds of people in canoes on the river. When the bus is stopped we get to see how the canoes are launched from the bank. There is a slide the canoes are put on, people get in, then pushed down the slide. They get up a lot of speed & hit the water with a big splash. I wonder how many go for a swim at that point.

We finally clear the traffic jam & go to a small town called Cangas de Onis (in honour of the King is the translation). The highlight here is a stone arched bridge called the Roman Bridge, built originally in the 14^th or 15^th century over the River Sella. We go for a walk over it, the surface is rough as it is made from rounded river stones & the bridge is steep to walk up. The views up & down the river are good. Afterwards we go for a short walk exploring the old town before heading off again.

We stop for lunch at another old town, Santilliana del Mar. This is a walking only town, full of beautiful old stone buildings & narrow streets, with small balconies out over the road. Again the streets are rough as they are lined with stones. We stop for a gelato as we walk to the end of town to see the old church from the 11^th century, the Colegiata de Santa Juliana. It was formerly a monastery dating back to the year 870 & shows its age, it is an old church.

On the way back we stopped at El Jardin, a restaurant with an amazing looking old façade, inside there is a huge stone courtyard with large shady trees growing. We get a table readily enough & order a paella & a prawn salad, (they are both delicious) with a local beer & a 7 up lemonade. Everywhere, from now for Tereza, it is beer or wine, it is much cheaper than lemonade or water. My goodness cannot believe how much less we pay for food here than in Iceland. It is nice sitting in the shade as it is another hot day. After lunch we explore a little more before getting back on the bus for Santander.

Our hotel is an old building in a beautiful location on a beachfront. The building was originally built in 1917 when the King of Spain wanted a place for his guests to stay when visiting him at his summer palace on the headland overlooking the river & sea. It is a beautiful old building with polished marble floors & large comfortable guest areas, plus a large balcony overlooking the sea. We always stay in really nice hotels, but yesterday & today it is 5 star, today’s is very posh indeed.  Old time exquisite decorations, quality furniture, they still have the old lift, like Agatha Christie’s stories. After settling in we decide on a walk.

We walk out of the gardens of the hotel & turn right down the street & took an easy stroll downhill to the beach. My goodness there are some very nice & doubtless very expensive beachfront houses along this road, all with high fences & security gates & cameras. The beach is packed & we walk down & catch the red tourist train up the hill to the Palacio de la Magdalena. It is a beautiful style large house overlooking the ocean. We walk around then catch the next red tourist train back down before slowly walking back uphill to our hotel. We walked 8.5 kilometres today, another great day.