The Road Goes Ever On

Friday, January 1, 2010

Ever Westward Along The Coast

We continued our drive west, past Ferrol, to near La Coruna, an aire called,
I think, St. Piedre del Vismar; more construction; we were impressed

More infrastructure; the weather was such that we actually saw little of the
famous Picos de Europe, the Peaks of Europe, but what we did see was
impressive

More beautiful coastline

Lunch by the cove/bay at Ferrol

Overlooking Ferrol

At the aire near La Coruna

Pretty typical aire for this area

Still snacking well...

Santillana West

Tourist attraction we skipped; we spent a couple days in

Santillana del Mar, visiting Altamira, awaiting the DHL

delivery, exploring; Jean-Paul Sartre wrote that Santillana

del Mar was the most beautiful village in Spain; I'd disagree,

but then I have not seen them all

Part of the Colegium in Santillana, 12th century

Our first bull...these billboard things are all over Spain,

originally part of an advertising campaign ("Eat Beef or Die"),

but now part of the countryside and national identity

The DHL package, with my new improved international

drivers license (thank you, Rebecca), finally arrived at 2PM

Friday, so we decamped and headed west along the coast,

getting as far as an aire at Playa de Santa Maria del Mar;

this was part of the view

The beach itself, typical of the coastline along here

Backtracking...San Sebastian to Santillana del Mar

Things got a bit out of order...here are some pix from the road between San
Sebastian and Santillana del Mar, via Guernica. The problem we had getting
LPG--with an emptying tank and freezing weather--distracted us from
stopping at the Guggenheim in Bilbao. Oh well, next time; above, the north

coast, utterly spectacular, snowy mountains on the left, beautiful cliffs and
beaches on the right

Approaching the small town of Llanes (I think)

As I said, snowy mountains on the left; by this time, we had scrapped our
notions of driving to Madrid (across these mountains), but rather to await
our DHL package in Santillana and then cling to the warmer coast, all the
way west to Santiago de Compostuela

The Basque north coast is Spain's heavy industry belt, and
here we saw gigantic plants, warehouses, infrastructure

construction rivaling what we saw in China a year ago; this
is the beginning of what I think is the largest (by acreage)

building I have ever seen

Other end of the same building, a mile or so down the road

Bridges and other infrastructure going up everywhere

Largest quarry I have ever seen (well except maybe Carrara)

When the driving gets too unnerving, Vicki occasionally picks up the camera
to distract herself; most of the pix are unusable blurs, but I think this one has
artistic merit

We Interrupt This Blog...

The last few weeks we have been in wifi-challenged Portugal and now back in similarly-challenged Spain. There's simply been no place or time or connection to blog. We spent Christmas in Lisbon and then New Year's in Madrid, where we are presently. Hopefully, today, at a McDonald's near the Royal Palace, I'll be able to begin catching up on the last few weeks. They have been eventful. Stay tuned.

Oh, and Happy New Year to all!

Sunday, December 27, 2009

Altamira

While waiting for our package to arrive from DHL in

Santillana del Mar, we visited the nearby Altamira cave

paintings and museum. Altamira is absolutely in the

same league with Lascaux and Pech Merle (both closed

this time of year), late Paleolithic, definitely Cro Magnons.

The cave was naturally closed around 13,000 BC, and most

of the paintings are now reckoned to have been done c.

18,000BC. Picasso visited the caves and exclaimed that

"after Altamira, all art is decadence." He had similar things

to say about Lascaux. We figure he was angling for a free

lifetime pass. Above, Vicki outside the museo.

The museum itself is one of the very best pre-history

museums we have seen

Like Lascaux, Altamira is really a replica, for reasons of

preservation, but a very convincing one

Mostly animals, mostly what they appear to have been

interested in

Another

My favorite, nearly a Picasso

Another still

Two of the three hands in negative; the really famous one is

at Pech Merle

The actual cave entrance

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Guernica

Central square and fountain in Guernica

Street scene

The International Peace Museum

Guernica church

Museum of Basque Culture

The Basque parliament building; Guernica has been their

gathering place for centuries

Trunk of the old oak tree under which Basque

leaders gathered to elect their leader

The new oak tree

Wednesday morning we departed beautiful San Sebastian and headed west along the coast, but up into the hills briefly to see Guernica, both the capital of Basque country and also the site of the infamous 1937 terror bombing that killed and injured thousands, the subject of Picasso's famous painting. At the time, it was as bad as warfare could be imagined--relentless bombing of civilians on market day--Hitler's first experiment in terror bombing. Ironically, it was so successful that the Germans (Franco's supporters) suspended work on a heavy bomber and decided to rely strictly on the twin-engined medium types. The Battle of Britain would have turned out differently had the Germans long-range heavy-payload bombers in their arsenal.

From Guernica we headed back to the coast, intending to see the Guggenheim Museum at Bilbao, but we got totally distracted by the fact that our fittings were not compatible with Spanish LPG nozzles (despite assurances otherwise from various authorities). This plus the fact that we were down to 1/3 tank and historically-cold weather was predicted. So we drove on to the campground at Santillana del Mar, where our new drivers license was to be delivered by DHL. At the campground there we at least had electricity to heat with. It was our first night in a campground in 28 days.