Where's Bertie? He's still at the Aire in Santander.
Weather: Gloriously sunny until around 2pm, raining on and off from 4.
Our decision against the Museo de Bellas Artes was a good one. It would have been a poor choice to spend the early or middle parts of today indoors, blessed as we were by clear blue skies. Moreover, we would have missed out on seeing the attractive bits of Santander.
I mentioned yesterday that the Aire is located across the road from a wetland, and probably did it a disservice by not describing it further. The wetland is set in a manicured area, criss-crossed and bordered by paths and walkways. Whilst we haven't ventured into the parkland itself, we benefitted from the pavement that runs all around the outside, crossing not a single side road in its path. Two circuits of that equalled a 3.25-mile run this morning.
Off out we went again after breakfast, passing for the third time today the big slug (whale?) of an events venue...
...not far after which we came to the beach. It turns out that we are significantly nearer to the beach than we are to the city centre.
The beachside promenade took us (via plenty of people playing some bat and ball beach-based game that is obviously popular hereabouts) to the grounds of Magdalena Palace, which are open for public wanderings.
Big beach, with plenty of people on it, some quite scantily clad considering the cool temperature of the morning.
The building on top of the green mound is the Palace; the green mound is the gardens.
Much bat and ball action. It's a quick game, the objective of which seems to be to keep the ball in the air, rather than scoring points by causing your opponents to miss it
A big board at the entrance gave the recommended route to circumperambulate the gardens, and who are we to shun a recommendation?
A pause on a bench on our way up to the palace put us in front of a view in which I could identify nothing that suggested that we weren't on a stretch of coast in the UK:
I'll just throw a snap of this chap in here. It's much better than the one I managed of the penguins later.
At the palace we sought out the coat of arms above the main entrance. The excellent audioguide in the town of Ellorio, a few weeks back, had explained to us that the way the helmet in the coat of arms faces states whether the family is noble, legitimate or bastard. Unsurprisingly, this one was noble.
There's snow on them thar hills - and that be the direction in which we are headed.
A stop for elevenses on the way back to Bertie topped off a very enjoyable walk nicely.
That might have been our only activity of the day, except that we had run out of downloaded newspapers, and thus crosswords, so needed to find some wifi before we could settle down to our afternoon puzzles. That wasn't a difficult task, as I'd loitered outside of a branch of Santander yesterday, downloading podcasts onto my phone, so I knew where to go. Up the hill we went (should I confess that we did use the escalators and moving walkways? In our defence, we did keep walking on them), armed with the tablet this time.
The glorious blue sky that had persisted through lunch had clouded over remarkably quickly, and by the time we were perched on the wall outside of the bank, it was feeling decidedly like rain. Rain it did, too, although not until a good ten minutes after we got back to Bertie.
So, a surprisingly good day that told us that if you avoid the centre of Santander, and stick to the coastal bits, it's a really nice place.
Plenty of outdoor art too, like this chap:
Weather: Gloriously sunny until around 2pm, raining on and off from 4.
Our decision against the Museo de Bellas Artes was a good one. It would have been a poor choice to spend the early or middle parts of today indoors, blessed as we were by clear blue skies. Moreover, we would have missed out on seeing the attractive bits of Santander.
I mentioned yesterday that the Aire is located across the road from a wetland, and probably did it a disservice by not describing it further. The wetland is set in a manicured area, criss-crossed and bordered by paths and walkways. Whilst we haven't ventured into the parkland itself, we benefitted from the pavement that runs all around the outside, crossing not a single side road in its path. Two circuits of that equalled a 3.25-mile run this morning.
Off out we went again after breakfast, passing for the third time today the big slug (whale?) of an events venue...
...not far after which we came to the beach. It turns out that we are significantly nearer to the beach than we are to the city centre.
The beachside promenade took us (via plenty of people playing some bat and ball beach-based game that is obviously popular hereabouts) to the grounds of Magdalena Palace, which are open for public wanderings.
Big beach, with plenty of people on it, some quite scantily clad considering the cool temperature of the morning.
The building on top of the green mound is the Palace; the green mound is the gardens.
Much bat and ball action. It's a quick game, the objective of which seems to be to keep the ball in the air, rather than scoring points by causing your opponents to miss it
A big board at the entrance gave the recommended route to circumperambulate the gardens, and who are we to shun a recommendation?
A pause on a bench on our way up to the palace put us in front of a view in which I could identify nothing that suggested that we weren't on a stretch of coast in the UK:
I'll just throw a snap of this chap in here. It's much better than the one I managed of the penguins later.
At the palace we sought out the coat of arms above the main entrance. The excellent audioguide in the town of Ellorio, a few weeks back, had explained to us that the way the helmet in the coat of arms faces states whether the family is noble, legitimate or bastard. Unsurprisingly, this one was noble.
There's snow on them thar hills - and that be the direction in which we are headed.
A stop for elevenses on the way back to Bertie topped off a very enjoyable walk nicely.
That might have been our only activity of the day, except that we had run out of downloaded newspapers, and thus crosswords, so needed to find some wifi before we could settle down to our afternoon puzzles. That wasn't a difficult task, as I'd loitered outside of a branch of Santander yesterday, downloading podcasts onto my phone, so I knew where to go. Up the hill we went (should I confess that we did use the escalators and moving walkways? In our defence, we did keep walking on them), armed with the tablet this time.
The glorious blue sky that had persisted through lunch had clouded over remarkably quickly, and by the time we were perched on the wall outside of the bank, it was feeling decidedly like rain. Rain it did, too, although not until a good ten minutes after we got back to Bertie.
So, a surprisingly good day that told us that if you avoid the centre of Santander, and stick to the coastal bits, it's a really nice place.
Plenty of outdoor art too, like this chap:
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