Santillana to Liencres

Santillana to Liencres
28 km, 460 m

Until I got to about the last 9 km, I was telling myself that uninspiring pavement walks are all just part of the Camino. This stage is made even less appealing with its passage through the industrial town of Torrelavega. It was time for school to start when I passed through, so I realized once again that people can be happy anywhere, because there were a lot of very energetic, happy children and their parents going towards the school.

I had had a few nice conversations with pilgrims coming in the opposite direction, I enjoyed waiting for my 6 km train ride with a couple of older Spanish people, and I appreciated that even though it was all on asphalt, I was almost always on a separate path for pedestrians. But that’s not much to wax poetic about.

But when I got to the turn off to go through the natural park of the dunes, things changed from blah to WOW! About 1K down to the beach was all on soft pine needles through the dunes. And then at the beach, hang a right and go east for about 6 km along a spectacularly beautiful coastal trail.

I am in a small hotel overlooking the water and some beaches below. I have done the very uncharacteristic thing of sitting on a comfortable chair and looking out over the water for about an hour.

I decided to walk about 1 km into town to get some food for dinner, so I could enjoy the sunset from my little patio. I bought some pretty standard Pilgrim grocery items.- gazpacho in a carton and prepared tortilla española. And I walked down to the nearest beach just to confirm my suspicion that those people who were actually swimming were crazy!

Sunset was at 9:35, which was later than I wanted to stay up, but how can you have a room on the ocean heading west and not stay up for sunset?

And ps—mil gracias to trecile and caminka- I would not have found my way without you!

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