From León we drove north, skirting the Picos de Europa, to Santillana del Mar, where we had stayed in the same Parador in 1985. At that time, many of the first floors of the stone mansions were in use as cow byres. Today, all those places have been turned into restaurants and souvenir shops. Nonetheless the town remains picturesque. The reason for going to Santillana was that it's near the Altamira cave. No one is allowed to go into the actual cave, but there's a reproduction in the museum--no photography allowed.
We drove to the nearby town of Comillas for lunch.
From Santillana we drove east along the
north coast of Spain. In 1985 we stayed at the Hotel Monte
Igueldo in San Sebastián. Today the city goes by its Basque name,
Donostia, but the hotel is still there and we stopped for lunch.
Below is the view of Donostia from the hotel.
We spent a couple of days in Hondarribia,
formerly known as Fuenterrabia. The Parador is in a squat castle
built by Charles I.
France being so near, Carole wanted to
visit it. Since the GPS had a map of only Spain and Portugal, and
we had no paper map of France, I was reluctant to go there. It was like
driving off the edge of the Earth. But we had to go, so we went, had
lunch in St. Jean de Luz, and returned safely to Spain.
