Who Would Come And Rescue Us

It was Saturday morning, we were scheduled to board our ferry in Santander, on the North Coast of Spain, which is around a four hour drive from Segovia, but not until the Sunday afternoon. Had we have stuck to ‘my’ original itinerary and stopped off at Toledo first, then we would have had just a relatively short drive to Segovia and then had the full day to do some sightseeing, stayed overnight and then just headed straight up to the ferry on the Sunday morning. However, my beloved, having other ideas about our route arrangements, meant that we would now have to look for another place to stop on our route between Segovia and Santander. After studying the map, and not having too much time to take any major deviations from it, we realised that we had already visited most of the major places and, those that we hadn’t, well they were to be part of a ‘future’ combined sightseeing tour where we would spend perhaps a week or two in this part of Northern Spain covering four or five towns and cities. However, a bit of good timing had just happened to play a part in the choice for our next destination.

I regularly follow selected travel Vlogs on ‘You Tube’, either Motorhome or Sailing related one’s. A week before we left home I just happened to be watching one of my sailing Vlogs, they had very recently moored up in Santander and done a day visit into the city. Now Shazza and I have often caught ferries from, or returned to, Santander on very many occasions over the last twelve year’s or so, but we have never really explored the city itself in any great depth during those times, we were either in a rush to catch the ferry to the UK, or to get back home to Southern Spain. So, after watching the sailing vlog, which revealed much more to Santander than either of us had really appreciated, I suggested that this could be the perfect place to stop, we would have the Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning to explore, before then going to check in for our ferry at 1:45pm. Shazza gave her murmurings of approval then went on-line to research the accommodation availabilities. She had booked us a hotel right opposite the seafront and, according to Google Maps, only a five minute drive to the ferry vehicle check-in area. Additionally, and very conveniently, the hotel was just a two minute walk from the city centre and it had secure underground parking so, after a not such a good week, just prior to starting this trip, it seemed as though the stars were aligning for us once again, although to be honest we were still a little apprehensive waiting to see what the third thing would be that the ‘Dark Forces’ may have in store for us, but this time we were both on high alert and prepared for them. We had seen all the at sea disaster movies and ‘Titanic’, at least 5 times, so we knew how crowded the Lifeboats would be and, with Shazza not liking wet environments, we had planned ahead and brought ‘Kevin’ our inflatable dinghy with us, just in case we had to abandon ship, the bonus being that we knew from the British Media headlines over the last couple of year’s that, if we were anywhere near the French Coast in a dinghy, the French Coastguard would escort us safely into British waters and then contact the English RNLI ‘Who Would Come And Rescue Us’ 😂

I conducted the ‘Forrest Gump’ weather watch process out of the hotel room window and, much like the previous morning, the sky was grey, but thankfully it was dry 🙏 We decided not to bother with the buffet breakfast and agreed to just hit the road and get an early start, we would find a place to eat somewhere along our route where we could also re-fuel the car, so we checked-out of the hotel, put the luggage in the boot and off we went, it was 08:00am. My eye was a little blurry so Shazza elected to drive, we would swap later if my eye cleared. Just ten minutes into our journey we came across a small ‘Repsol’ service station, we much prefer using these branded fuel stations when in Spain, although at a push we will use ‘Cepsa’, ‘Shell’ or ‘BP’, although the latter two are always more expensive, however, this one did not have a Cafe so breakfast would have to wait. It would take us a little over an hour before we joined the main A62 motorway at Valladolid, which would then take us North towards our destination, the A62 being a very familiar road to us now. Although the road, until we reached the major motorway, was still all dual carriageway, it was traffic free and quiet, looking out at the changing rural scenery, forested areas, undulating arable fields and the occasional hamlets which were just stuck out in the middle of nowhere, it made the time pass extremely quickly. Once we had got onto the A62 the traffic increased, although compared with the UK motorways that we would soon encounter, in comparison these were always relatively quiet, anyway, we selected the first available services and stopped for breakfast, just our usual ‘Tostados’ and a coffee. Although the vision in my eye had cleared, Shazza said that she was more than happy to continue driving, the truth being that she can at times be a nervous passenger, especially when in busier traffic and, although she doesn’t voice it, I sense that she is probably much more concerned than she makes out about the slight impediment in the focus out of my right eye when in confined spaces, so she feels more comfortable when she is in control of the car. To be honest it works out quite well as she admits that I am better at navigating than her, she can then just concentrate on the actual driving, although I get the better end of the deal because in Spain, on long stretches of the motorway, there isn’t a lot of navigating to be done 🤭 It is strange really because, when we are at home, I generally do all of the driving in our local area, unless of course we are going supermarket shopping in the town where we have to park in the underground car park, which has subdued lighting and the fluorescent lights play havoc with my vision, it always reminds me of those scary murder mysteries that you watch, where several of the lights in dark areas always flicker, before a dark shadowy figure emerges from the gloom 🫣😳 but in my case it is just Shazza with her shopping bags.

We had made very good time in getting to our destination and although we didn’t really need to re-fuel again, just a few minutes outside of Santander we decided to just top up, the fuel being cheaper here in Spain than in the UK and, by doing so, it would mean that when we got to the UK that we would be able to drive from Portsmouth to Wiltshire, and then a few days later, drive up to South Yorkshire, before needing to re-fuel again.

Santander, being a major Port and Tourist City, was very busy with traffic, three lanes of bumper to bumper vehicles, but the hotel was easy enough to find with the aid of ‘Google Maps’ although, finding the entrance to the underground parking along a semi-pedestrianised back street was a little more complicated, and then we discovered that we needed to check-in first to get the electronic card to gain access to the car lift 🙄 Shazza waited in the car, whilst I went and did the check-in process and returned with the said electronic card, the lift descended us to the third subterranean level where our allocated parking bay was located.

The ‘Hotel Bahia’ was very plush and large, located just across the road from the seafront with a nice long promenade that led to a sandy beach, to one side was a lovely spacious park and just behind it were all the main shopping streets, dispersed between a combination of the ‘Old’ and ‘New’ buildings of the city, their were modern shops, Cafe/Bars and restaurants in pedestrianised streets whilst their were also other shops along narrow streets with traffic, criss-crossing busy one-way roads, then there were churches and old historical stone buildings that were now being utilised to accommodate official Government administrative offices, it was a bit of a maze really but typical of most Spanish towns and cities, hopefully we would get a chance to explore them later, once we had got settled into our room and had a coffee, all the makings, and kettle, were provided in this hotel room.

We had been allocated a room on the third floor that looked out upon part of the rear of the Cathedral and directly below the window, a pedestrianised area that had several Cafe/Bars, but we were high enough above so there was no noise. For security purposes we needed to use our electronic access room cards to operate the lifts, although we had not received any information on checking in to advise us of this, we were a little confused when the lift doors closed and then opened again only for us to discover that we were still on the ground floor level 🙄 When we eventually got to our room it was very spacious, as was the en-suite bathroom with its large walk-in shower, I thought to myself, we would have one of these ourselves, in just a few weeks time, when we had our en-suite bathroom completely renovated 🤗

We don’t know when the wet stuff had started, it was a fine drizzle so we hadn’t heard it on the windows and we had both been otherwise engaged, Shazza stuck with her nose in her Kindle and me surfing the Internet on my iPad, but we both agreed that we needed a breath of fresh air and we hadn’t eaten since our breakfast Tostado’s earlier that morning. Shazza had found a ‘Vegetarian’ Cafe on Google and it was only a two minute walk from the hotel, although it didn’t open until 8pm, but we thought we would do some sightseeing first and then call in and eat before returning to the hotel. As it was, as we passed the location of the Cafe, we discovered that it had recently closed down, although it had to have been very recently as the last on-line review had only been put on two weeks ago 🤷‍♂️

The drizzle turned into light rain and although we discovered the pedestrianised streets, they were not undercover, so we went in hunt of a suitable eatery to get us out of the rain and somewhere that would offer Shazza something other than a ‘Goats Cheese Salad’ 🙄 Fortunately, being a ‘Flexitarean’, I like that description because it makes me sound fit and youthful 🏋️💪🏃‍♂️🤭 but it means that I can eat anything, at any eatery, whether it be ‘Vegan’, ‘Vegetarian’ or otherwise, however, as Shazza had treated me to the ‘Suckling Pig’ restaurant in Segovia, I wanted to return the gesture by finding her somewhere where she had a few more healthier options.

It was beginning to get dark, it was wet, although not really cold and we had wandered up and down the numerous avenues and alleyways (I feel a Tony Christie song coming on 🤭) 🎶 I did what I did for my Shazza 🎶 😂 However, whilst there were plenty of Bar/Cafe’s and Restaurants, with the usual variety of Salad options there was nowhere that specialised in, or offered, a vegan type selection, grilled or roasted vegetables with a baked potato would have sufficed and the only establishments offering anything like that were those that sold Vegetarian ‘Pizzas’ 🤷‍♂️ In the end, Shazza’s stomach clock dictated that anything would do, even a ‘Veggie Burger’ and we fell upon a small little corner eatery that advertised speciality ‘Burgers’. It was quite a popular place with all age groups and with families and we were fortunate to grab the last unoccupied table. We liked it because it had a homely feeling to it, not a ‘Burger King’ or ‘McDonalds’ corporate fast food establishment and the list of menu items, both starters and mains fitted on to one sheet of A4 sized paper, presented to us on a cork clipboard. I had a house special which was, to me, just a normal thick ‘home-made burger’, thick slice of proper bacon, cheese and a mustard sauce, not a single lettuce leaf, sliced tomato or gherkin in sight and it was accompanied with a modest serving of proper ‘skin on’ thick cut chips, ‘Muy Sabroso’ (Very Tasty 😋) as we say here in Spain. Shazza had decided against a veggie burger and opted for the ‘Veggie Lasagne’ which unfortunately, whilst being full of melted cheese and pasta, lacked any of what should have been the ‘main ingredient’, the vegetables, so she had lucked out once again 😢 We decided to commiserate by opting for a dessert, Shazza ordered a slice of Chocolate Fudge Cake and me a slice of American Carrot Cake, what arrived looked and tasted ‘Delicioso’ (Delicious) but we only wanted a slice of cake, not a quarter of the whole cake 😲 We did the best we could but in the end we both failed to meet the challenges placed before us. The photo’s below are of what we both left !!

When we left the Cafe it was properly dark, although the rain had stopped and the streets were buzzing with life, the Cafe/Bars were pretty busy and even in the damp night air the ambience was infectious, so much so that we just wandered aimlessly taking it all in.

We had slept well and awoken early but were greeted with heavy rain tapping on the window. We were disappointed as we had hoped to do some sightseeing during the morning, before having to check-out at 12pm and then reporting to Brittany Ferries for our 2:30pm sailing. We sat checking the morning news media on our iPads and my attention was grabbed by this particular headline………………

This had happened on the day that we had departed Segovia. At first I thought it was perhaps a suicide with the way the headline was worded, but reading the article it would appear that the man was taking a photograph from the viewing area when he lost his balance and fell. The thing is, the turreted wall at the viewing platform, where we too had taken some photo’s, is safe enough, unless you actually climb on to the wall to get a better photo, or perhaps try to take a Selfie with the Aqueduct in the background 🤷‍♂️ Whatever the circumstances, you have to ask what lengths, and risks, would you take for the sake of a holiday snap 🤔 I have to confess to you my reader’s, not even I would go to such lengths to provide you with better photographs in my blogs. Yes I already know what some of you may be thinking, self, self, self Eric 😂 However, at least you are safe in the knowledge that I am still here to continue to provide you with lots of future photographs from our travel adventures, I know, you don’t have to tell me just how grateful you feel about that 🤭

Fortunately the heavy rain eased to light drizzle by 10:30am and we decided to go for it, neither of us were hungry and we knew that, as we had booked access to the ‘Premier Lounge’ on the ferry, we could get a late buffet lunch once settled into our cabin.

Being a Sunday morning the streets were pretty quiet, the shops were closed, although a handful of small Cafe/Bars were open. We wandered towards the Cathedral but that was getting ready for the morning Catholic service, so we gave it a miss. It was nice to just amble through the streets and the nearby park, but we were not relaxed with having to keep one eye on the time with the knowledge that we had to complete packing the last bits into our cases and backpacks, we would leave the cases in the car once boarded and just take our backpacks and essentials up to our assigned cabin, but we needed to check-out, then go and retrieve the car from the depths of the underground car park before finding our way through the maze of one-way streets to the ferry terminal, to describe my OCD Buddy as being a bit nervous, bordering on irritable, knowing that we could not afford to wander aimlessly for too long, would be a bit of an understatement 🙄

To be honest, at this point it was damp, not particularly cold but we were just killing time, we walked across to the seafront, the sea looked nice and calm, but we knew that things could change once the ferry left the safety and protection of the inner harbour and entered the open water of the notoriously choppy ‘Bay of Biscay’. We had both had enough, to do the place justice we would perhaps need to return on another day, when it was both warmer and we would not be under such time restrictions, so we made our way back to the hotel.

We had assumed that the traffic on a Sunday would be less busy, we were wrong ! Even Google Maps couldn’t keep pace with the number of side streets, some traffic light controlled, causing the busy traffic to accumulate, other side streets were only one-way traffic, and those one way streets were not in the direction we wanted them to be, Shazza was getting a little overwhelmed having to keep her eyes going in all directions, the rear view mirror, door mirrors, side and front windows and so she missed my instruction to turn left at the appropriate time, so we ended up doing two circuits of the same streets, but at least we got to see buildings and shop fronts we had missed the first time around 🤭My next very clear navigational instruction was, “At the traffic lights, go straight across and then, immediately after the lights, take the slip road to the right”, unfortunately we were in three lanes of busy traffic and in her deep concentration she mis-heard me and turned right immediately ‘before’ the traffic lights and we ended up in a car park 😂 But all credit to her, Shazza never gets flustered, she maintained her calm, we both laughed and between us, eventually, we managed to navigate ourselves safely to the vehicle check-in huts at the ferry terminal. We smiled when we considered the fact that no other vehicle had ‘beeped’ us, not once, as we slowly and maybe just a little nervously, manoeuvred ourselves through the busy streets, and we could only assume that on another day, this may have been a different kettle of fish, if we had been displaying UK vehicle registration plates instead of our Spanish one 😂

As usual we handed over our Passports at the Immigration Control desk, but on this occasion they were open at the pages which displayed our Residency Visas, the friendly Official asked us for our ‘TIE’ Residency Cards, then checked them on his computer before inserting an exit stamp into our passports and passed them back saying, “Que tengas unas buenas vacaciones’ (Have a nice holiday). We didn’t have to wait too long before being boarded, then we got settled into our cabin before making our way to the ‘Premier Lounge’ where we enjoyed a spot of lunch whilst sat watching the ferry manoeuvre from the mooring and out to sea, through the large floor to ceiling windows, it was like being at the helm of the vessel myself. There was only the slightest of swells as we entered the vastness of the ‘Bay of Biscay’, it would be a 27 hour crossing, our next stop Portsmouth.

Our journey continues so, until the next ramble………………..

Hasta Luego mi Amigos, La Vida Es Buena