Santander to Oviedo

Our hotel street and home to many cidrerias

pouring cider

Asturian cheeses and mebrillo

¡Fabada!

Tommy and his orange soda

We stored our bags at the hotel and headed out to see if it was clear enough to take a boat tour, but the weather did not cooperate.  Another gray, drizzly day.  we instead headed to a market we happened upon last night, el Mercado del Este.  It is a small building with a few stores and a couple of restaurants.  We had a nice lunch and headed to the bus station after picking up our bags.  We had a smooth ride to Oviedo, checked into out hotel, and strolled the center before settling in at a cidreria for dinner.  We had some typical Asturian dishes that were very tasty and filling.  Add fabada to my list of dishes that I will make back at home, though I will save it for winter.  

Santander Saturday

We hit the Sardinero Beach and were very impressed with how beautiful it was.  It is very long and wide beach with very clean water.  It is bookended by two hills that are parks.  We had lunch right at the beach and the pinchos/tapas were very creative and tasty.  For dinner, we went to Barrio de Pescadores, a fisherman's village in the port where the seafood restaurants serve very fresh seafood at reasonable prices.  I ordered the mariscada, which was a mound of shellfish.  The razor clams really stood out.  After Galicia, where we will end our food trip, it seems Cantabria is the next best seafood spot.

Santander

Yesterday, we headed out for our early morning bus to Santander.  Our hotel was a few blocks walk from the bus station and has a nice bay view.  Two hours after our arrival, Santander kicked off a weeklong celebration, which offers live music, booths offering tapas and a drink for 2.5 euros, activities for kids, etc. all spread out around the city.  We made lunch out of the few that we just outside our very centrally located hotel.  

Getaria and Spanish park soccer

Robbie insisted on petting this Basque Shepherd

Robbie and I took off for Getaria, what I hoped would be a fishing village not overrun with tourists.  It was exactly that.  We walked through the main street of town down to the port and through a nature walk out to a point where we had great water views.  We came back and tried to eat at a highly recommended fish restaurant called Elkano, but they were booked solid for the day.  Instead, we happened upon a very good pincho joint.  We came back and our afternoon activity was soccer in the park where the boys played with a bunch of Spanish kids and overcoming the language barrier was fun to watch.