Santander

Our decision to sashe in Santander was left wholly in the hands of Ryanair; we found a v. cheap flight back to the mainland rain and gloom of London early on in our trip planning. After 22 days on the travel trot, I was just about ready to go home. So we endeavoured to take it very easy on our last two days of the trip.


We arrived into Santander after short pitstops in industrial Bilbao and a series of tiny Spanish villages. There was a brief wander around town before we headed to our accomodation, Hostal Vistapark in El Astillero, a fifteen minute feve ride from the centre of Santander. Vistapark was a beautiful, beautiful thing--nothing like our Barca experience, clean, quiet and friendly. Our hostellier, Maria, gave us a free upgrade so we ended our four week holiday in a room equipped with an en-suite bathroom and large flat screen television.

Maria also gave us a short verbal tour of the city. Santander is a bustling port town, home to Santander Bank and the capital of the Cantabria region of Spain. There's a beautiful castle called Palacio de la Magdalena, where the Spanish Royal family spends part of their summers. We took this information on board and then opted to spend our last days on the sandy, sandy beaches of El Sardinero, located a short taxi boat ride across the peninsula.
the castle and city from the beach peninsula



Whilst on the beach, the wind kicked up and we were fooled into believing it wasn't that hot. Natasha made the hideously painful, but still funny, mistake of taking off her sunglasses and falling asleep. She woke up an hour later with sunburned, swollen eyelids. And that's partially the reason we ended up in our hotel room eating ramen noodles cooked in the microwave watching spanish football on the tv. It's funny how, at the end, that's all we really wanted.

We spent much of our last day hiding from the sun, sitting on park benches reading books and connecting with people we'd met along the trip on facebook in Santander's only internet cafe. And that's really how it ended. Nothing exciting or glamorous, unless you counting trying to spend your last euros on spanish flavoured crisps in the airport as exciting.

We arrived back in London late. It was raining. As I waited for the 41 at Tottenham Hale, a man got in a fight with a bus driver and he drove his big red vehicle off, sans passengers. Home sweet home.