Cantabria - Basque country: Day 3

After collected all bus and train schedules that I need for my Cantabria trip, I successfully managed to find the optimal itinerary (after implemented all the methods I knew :-P, but seriously it took quite some time to get the solution given that I only had one day). The plan was to take train to San Vincente de la Barquera (in the direction to Oviedo, which was recommended by LP as the scenic train along the Cantabria-Asturia region), spent some time there and take bus to Comillas before return to Santander to take another bus to Bilbao (since I have booked a hostel in Bilbao that night).

I started the day around 9am to catch the train to San Vincente de la Barquerra, it was indeed a scenic train trip, made me feel like I was in Scotland, was not a long trip though, only around 1.5 hrs. I should try the whole route to Oviedo someday :-P What surprised me was the San Vincente's train station is very small and it is located somehow in the middle of nowhere. I could not imagine if I arrived there when it's dark already :-P.. It was good thing that there were 2 more people stop at the station so I could follow them to the town center. I imagined that San Vincente is a bigger town with a lot of tourists..that's why I really made sure several time that the name of the train stop was really the town that I intended to go, and it was indeed the right one :-P The train station is a bit far away from the town center, it took me around 15 mins walk to reach the center. I went to the town hall and the castle but found that it was closed at that day :-( I found the Tourist Information Center to get more info on what else I could see (and to make sure where is the location of the bus to Comillas). Then I walked to the direction of the port with its colorful boats. It was really warm around 21C, but it did not stop me to enjoy San Vincente.

I planned to take the bus at 15:15 to Comillas and decided to have a real lunch (seafood Paella...a huge one.. that's it :-P). I was at the bus station around 15:05 and there were nobody there except some people at the bar, no sign that there will be bus departing in 10mins and I know that San Vincente is the starting point of the route. I was waiting...until 15:15 and still there was still no sign and I started to get worry.. I decided to ask people at the bar and found out that nobody could speak English :-( So I tried my best to use any possible communication tool, I pointed my schedule and one guy and the waitress tried to explain me something....but I did not get it. They told me (or actually they wrote me the time)the next bus would be at 17:00. I asked them if I could go by taxi there, since Comillas is actually about 10 mins trip from San Vincente. But they told me it will be expensive and he started to draw something which finally got me. There was a construction on the way from San Vincente to Comillas, so they have to use another way which took another 15 mins or so... and that what happened with the bus schedule, they made the departure time 15 mins earlier so that they could catch up the next schedule at the other towns.... Hwaaa I finally got that (I saw the sign of 15 mins blablabla at the bus...but since I did not have any problem with the schedule previously so I did not really care about it :-P). That was a short version of how I finally understood the problem, the real one was a bit...hmm painful :-P. Well so I gave up the idea to visit Comillas (and visiting one of Gaudi's) which gives me another reason to visit this area again :-).

At the end of the day I made it to Bilbao....was quite late but it was a good time to go directly to bed :-)

Cantabria - Basque country: Day 1 and 2

I haven't decided to take this holiday until the last minutes but I have read some info about this area before. I like that kind of reading as you might know :-P To those who do not know Santander, it is one of the big cities in Cantabria region, a region in the north of Spain which famous of its spectacular coast line along the bay of Biscay. This area, I learned from several sources, is quite different from the other areas in Spain with its mountainous landscape. It's kind of coasts and mountains in the same area region.

I arrived in Santander quite late around 9pm, I have booked a pension close to the train station in Santander and I was so happy that I followed my intuition to buy a Spanish dictionary at the airport. The lady who welcomed me at the pension could not speak English at all, she knew that I could not speak Spanish (she asked me when I just arrived) but she continued to speak Spanish to me :-P I haven't been in Spain for quite some time (last time was my Segovia-Madrid-Seville-Granada-Algeciras-Barcelona trip in Dec 2005-Jan 2006...gosh 3 years ago...did not realize that) I forgot most of my basic Spanish for survival sentences :-P That lady tried to tell me something but I had no clue at all what she wanted to say and after saw my blank face she decided to grab someone who can speak English (and Spanish) as a translator. It turned out that she wanted to ask me whether I was happy with the room she showed me because otherwise there was a bigger room in different building :-P So much for my first day in Santander...lol..

The next day, I planned to go to Santillana del Mar and the famous Altamira cave. After checking the bus schedule, I found out that the earliest bus that day was at 11:30am (and I really had to be careful with the bus schedule since there are not so many departures...again it's quite an adventure to rely on public transportation). I spent some time to explore Santander that morning, strolling around its promenade and visiting its beautiful cathedral which really reminded me of a building in Oxford when you went inside.

I arrived in Santillana del Mar around noon and I knew from the tourist office in Santander that I had to go by foot or by taxi to reach Altamira cave museum from Santillana. At first I was really thinking about taking taxi (yeah it's holiday, wasn't it :-P) to save some time (quite a valid reason I would say..hehe) but I could not find a taxi there or actually I could not find the taxi driver (there was a taxi parked nearby the bus stop). So I had to walk...first of all I was not sure where to go, I had a map though but took some time to figure out the direction :-P The guy at the tourist office told me Altamira is about 2 kms from Santillana but he did not mention that it was uphill..it was noon, I had no lunch and it was quite warm (which was good but could be exhausting too). Thankfully the view was nice...though it was really only me who walked in the direction of the museum at that time :-P

Altamira museum was impressive...it made me think how's life 18000 years ago. It's a pity that we could not see the real caves but the museum was great (it was free of charge when I visited there). By the time I finished my museum tour I knew that I could not take the bus I planned to take to return to Santander. I arrived back in Santillana around 4pm and almost all the shops were closed for siesta, so I only walked around the scenic village. Santillana is beautiful village with its cobblestone street. I visited the roman Colegiata de Santa Juliana, a beautiful 12th century monastery which is the highlight of the village. I also visited the Museo Diocesano, another monastery at the other end of the village which I found had quite bizarre collection. First of all, I was the only visitor there and it was almost dark already when I was there and their cryptic collection (plus its two level wooden floor) did not really make me enjoying the moments I spent in that museum. But overall Santillana is pretty and I managed to catch the latest bus to Santander around 7pm...:-)

Cantabria and Basque country - Introduction

Haven't had time to update this blog with my latest trip in north Spain in March. Life has been busy lately, during the weekdays and weekends :-). Basically I lost my fight with my addiction (yeah traveling addict that's it). I should have been in a traveling fasting period but I could not stand for cheap flight deals, so somehow someday (in Feb I think) I found a cheap flight (2 cents for return trips) to Santander in northern Spain. I haven't been to the north of Spain before and to be honest I haven't heard about Santander before I knew those cheap flight deals, all I knew about north of Spain was Santiago des Campostela and Bilbao. I was interested when I found more information about the city and decided to book the flight...it was only 2 cents anyway that's after tax though I had to pay 10 EUR for my credit card charge....but still...it's a cheap deal (besides I did not know that charge until I saw the confirmation email :-P..and I could not imagine 2 cents charge on my credit card hehe).

Okay I booked those flights but I haven't decided to go at that time, sounds weird indeed but it happened :-P. I still had 2 days from my annual leave last year that I had to finish before the end of March so four day holiday (plus weekend) was a good option. But I was not sure to spend some money for my holiday (outside the 10.02 EUR that I have paid for my flight tickets) as I said I should have been in my traveling fasting period :-P.

My flight was on Saturday evening, March 7 and I finally decided to go when I woke up on that Saturday :-P I felt like I had to go to Spain that day...lol... so I just packed my stuff after that...and I did not really care about my battle with my traveling addiction (besides I have some friends who supported me with my 'go for holiday' decision :-P thanks guys!!).