Where's Bertie? He's in a parking area alongside the estuary at San Vicente de la Barquera (exact location: 43.38343, -4.39784).
Weather: Overcast start soon clearing to give us sunshine.
We seized the day and left Comillas in the dark this morning, driving the 11km along the coast to San Vicente for breakfast.
The tide was out (and the egrets in - there are lots of them perched on those boats) when we arrived.
An early start and an early breakfast meant that we were out and about early - before anything was open, in fact.
We didn't initially hit the best bits of San Vicente, as our first priority was to walk up to the top of the town to look at another potential parking spot, as the estuary-side parking is (for larger vehicles) parallel slots, which involve putting two wheels into a very-slanting gutter. Up through the alleyways between residential apartment blocks we went, and decided that whilst the car park up there was much flatter, it was also a lot less attractive. We decided to just live with the slant*.
Our return to Bertie took us via the church...
Looking at the less-interesting end of the church, from a viewpoint. Contrary to first-glance appearances, this photo is not in greyscale.
...the castle, the harbour and then via a cafe for coffees...
Whether through luck or an improvement in our language skills, we got exactly the coffees we were after this morning!
...and finally via a panaderia where we bought some incredibly expensive croissant. It was with great relief that they proved to be excellent.
A bit more wandering around revealed that there was a laundrette only about 100m away from Bertie, and whilst I had managed to resist the urge to use the one in Comillas (which was much closer even than that), today I could resist no longer. Doing laundry is the inconvenient aspect of living life in laybys and car parks, so it seemed silly to pass up the second good opportunity in as many days. The closeness meant we were able to nip back to Bertie whilst the machines were doing their things and I used the time productively to lay out the complete set of 126 granny squares that I have just finished crocheting, to decide in what order to crochet them together. Once crocheted together, I then need to add eight borders in order to declare the blanket complete, so it will keep me busy for a while yet:
By the time the laundry was put away, I was ready to eat a scabby dog (it was knocking on for 2pm and breakfast had been early), so out we went for lunch. Scouring menus in this town stuffed full of eating places, we didn't find anywhere offering sorropotúthn (the tuna and potato hotpot described by Humphrey in a comment last week, which sounded right up my street) but there were plenty of Menus del Dia to choose from. We went up-market today and chose one of the more expensive options, at €13.
The quantity of wine Mick is given has been reducing each time we eat out. On Monday, I joked that next time he would just get a glass, and that is exactly what happened.
The puddings defeated us, and we waddled back to Bertie, although we did manage to get ourselves back out for another stroll as dusk was falling.
Tides in, and plenty of fish are to be seen in the clear water alongside us.
Other news of the day is that somewhere between sitting down for breakfast and standing back up after breakfast, something unpleasant happened to my right knee. It feels exactly the same as the affliction I suffered a couple of years ago, which hurt every single day (especially going uphill or up stairs) for seven months, before disappearing as suddenly as it started. I hope this occurrence won't be as long lasting.
(*A couple of other motorhomes here have got their leveling ramps deployed. We've resisted on the basis that the use of the ramps would take us out of the definition of 'parking' and into the definition of 'camping', and thus take us from 'legal' to 'illegal'.)
Weather: Overcast start soon clearing to give us sunshine.
We seized the day and left Comillas in the dark this morning, driving the 11km along the coast to San Vicente for breakfast.
The tide was out (and the egrets in - there are lots of them perched on those boats) when we arrived.
An early start and an early breakfast meant that we were out and about early - before anything was open, in fact.
We didn't initially hit the best bits of San Vicente, as our first priority was to walk up to the top of the town to look at another potential parking spot, as the estuary-side parking is (for larger vehicles) parallel slots, which involve putting two wheels into a very-slanting gutter. Up through the alleyways between residential apartment blocks we went, and decided that whilst the car park up there was much flatter, it was also a lot less attractive. We decided to just live with the slant*.
Our return to Bertie took us via the church...
Looking at the less-interesting end of the church, from a viewpoint. Contrary to first-glance appearances, this photo is not in greyscale.
...the castle, the harbour and then via a cafe for coffees...
Whether through luck or an improvement in our language skills, we got exactly the coffees we were after this morning!
...and finally via a panaderia where we bought some incredibly expensive croissant. It was with great relief that they proved to be excellent.
A bit more wandering around revealed that there was a laundrette only about 100m away from Bertie, and whilst I had managed to resist the urge to use the one in Comillas (which was much closer even than that), today I could resist no longer. Doing laundry is the inconvenient aspect of living life in laybys and car parks, so it seemed silly to pass up the second good opportunity in as many days. The closeness meant we were able to nip back to Bertie whilst the machines were doing their things and I used the time productively to lay out the complete set of 126 granny squares that I have just finished crocheting, to decide in what order to crochet them together. Once crocheted together, I then need to add eight borders in order to declare the blanket complete, so it will keep me busy for a while yet:
By the time the laundry was put away, I was ready to eat a scabby dog (it was knocking on for 2pm and breakfast had been early), so out we went for lunch. Scouring menus in this town stuffed full of eating places, we didn't find anywhere offering sorropotúthn (the tuna and potato hotpot described by Humphrey in a comment last week, which sounded right up my street) but there were plenty of Menus del Dia to choose from. We went up-market today and chose one of the more expensive options, at €13.
The quantity of wine Mick is given has been reducing each time we eat out. On Monday, I joked that next time he would just get a glass, and that is exactly what happened.
The puddings defeated us, and we waddled back to Bertie, although we did manage to get ourselves back out for another stroll as dusk was falling.
Tides in, and plenty of fish are to be seen in the clear water alongside us.
Other news of the day is that somewhere between sitting down for breakfast and standing back up after breakfast, something unpleasant happened to my right knee. It feels exactly the same as the affliction I suffered a couple of years ago, which hurt every single day (especially going uphill or up stairs) for seven months, before disappearing as suddenly as it started. I hope this occurrence won't be as long lasting.
(*A couple of other motorhomes here have got their leveling ramps deployed. We've resisted on the basis that the use of the ramps would take us out of the definition of 'parking' and into the definition of 'camping', and thus take us from 'legal' to 'illegal'.)
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