After Frodo’s scary adventure working his way through impossible cobbled streets in Mondoñedo, we eventually arrived at our campsite at Santiago de Compostela. This was a terraced campsite with each avenue of pitches being terraced above those below. The pitches were short – 9m max. – and very tight with little room between units. This is somewhere you come to sleep as a tourist, not somewhere you came for the joy of camping.

The following morning we all set off into Santiago de Compostela itself. We walked down our relative mountainside, passed my bit of sanity that was a Carrefour supermarket, and joined a footpath marked with brass scallop shells, one of the pilgrim caminos heading towards revered the cathedral of Santiago. Marked, that is, except for the various gaps in the paving slabs where various miscreant pilgrims had nicked the brass scallop shells. The scallop shell motive apparently stems from the early days predating a certificate when pilgrims went to Cape Finisterre to collect a scallop shell showing that they had completed the pilgrimage.

Today the pathway was filled with many pilgrims on their last leg, standing out from regular tourists because of their twin trekking poles. A local jogged past us bitching about the amount of the path we were taking up. On the paths in Santiago, the shells point towards the Santiago cathedral.

Leader Andy had organized a 2-hour guided walk around the sights of Santiago. We were wired for sound with earplugs, the better to hear our guide. We met her in the cathedral square. She was very good. Having talked us through a lot of the architecture of various faces of the cathedral, we headed off to see more of the town. To be frank, I found the architecture austere and dull but you know me with piles of old stones. OK, it isn’t my natural habitat but it was a couple of hours of entertainment.

The city tour following the cathedral led us down the Rua do Franco and Travesa do Franco, with which I had a natural affinity, especially as the rua was one of the main restaurant streets. Having nothing to do with me, the franco reference is to do with being the route to the cathedral from France. There are very many caminos to Santiago but these are the main ones. Once cut loose from our tour, we returned to Rua do Franco for some lunch concentrating on seafood.

Francine and a couple of travelling companions wanted to go into the cathedral. While they did, I happily remained outside guarding the small collection of rucksacks. Upon exit, Francine said that most of the cathedral interior was relatively plain but that the altar did possess lots of “bling”. This image shows the enormous incense burner to counteract unpleasant smells of the great unwashed, which weighs in, allegedly, at 100kgs. Don’t get hit on the head.

We walked back uphill via a handy-dandy bar for some refreshment. We managed to clock up 19000 steps today,  a mere spit compared to the steps required to follow one of the many pilgrim trails.

On our way to Santiago de Compostela, our group planned to make an interim stop at Mondoñedo. Everything was going very smoothly, including finding a fuel stop, until we arrived somewhere near a motorhome parking area on the outskirts of town. You will notice the use of the phrase “somewhere near”.

To expand on that, we have Frodo’s built in satnav which, as a satnav is pretty good; it’s designed for motorhome use and you can set vehicle size to avoid inappropriate roads. Added to this, its directions are clear. Where it falls hopelessly flat on its face is that the GPS receiver is buried beneath lots of other apparently confusing electronic gubbins and frequently loses you, having not a clue where you are.

For more reliable positioning we have more frequently resorted to the use of Google maps navigation. This, however, has its own shortcomings – you can’t set vehicle size, you are just a car. Another issue seems to be that on Apple Carplay you can’t change the map resolution in flight.

We were approaching our intermediate stop on Google expecting a left turn. In front of us was a motor vehicle service point sign pointing left. We took it. In about 20m was a T-junction. Up and to our right I could see a square with motor vans. There was a no-entry sign in front of them. Google was telling us to turn left. Thinking it would send us around a block to approach from the other side, I duly turned left.

“Turn right”, instructed Google; OK.

“Turn right”, said Google again. Ah, no entry.

I did a 3-point turn intent on going back down the road I had just come up.

“Bollocks”, said Pooh, profanely. There was a no-entry sign there, too. The road we had come up was a one-way street. I went down the only road open to me.

The roads were cobbled and seemed to be getting narrower. Google wittily asked me to turn left up a one-way street going in the opposite direction. Google suggested a few more illegal moves as I was shepherded inexorably down a maze of ever-narrower cobbled streets until we eventually were brought to a complete halt by a workmen’s truck parked beside scaffolding as they worked on a building front. [The picture is taken looking back up the road we were trying to come down.]

One of the chaps up on the scaffolding gesticulated at me to reverse. Yeah, right, you have to be kidding. Apart from being unable to make that manoeuvre there was not other way out that I could then take that I could remember. That’s why I’m where I am. I shrugged at him helplessly. The van was clearly there for the duration.

Shortly, a young man with his wits about him wandered past us and chatted up the truck driver. The driver first drove forward, then reversed up the street to the left unblocking our path and allowing me to approach the T-junction immediately in front. I praised him profusely through the windscreen. He must have thought these tourists are bloody mad. (He would’ve been quite right). Once again, I had but one way that I could go or, at least, might be able to go.

After a minor touch of the high-level no-entry sign mounted on the corner of the building up out of my sight – I was intently watching the steps directly in front of me – with both wing mirrors retracted, I managed to shuffle turn right around the corner, avoiding the steps in front of me, the truck to my left, the scaffolding to my rear and the building corner to my right.

This new street was slightly wider. It must have been wider ‘cos two cars were parked ahead of me and to the right with, perhaps, just enough space to their left . I edged Frodo left, breathed in and began inching past the cars parked in front of a shop. Unhelpfully, the shop had two potted plants mounted in holders on its frontage reducing the space available. Watching the cars on my right, I grazed one pot plant and dismounted it. Francine, who was outside watching doing all she could to assist, retrieved the poor plant. She muttered “losiento” [sorry] to a nonplussed  man in the shop doorway as she handed back the plant, happily undamaged. We were racking up a goodly collection of disbelieving looks from various locals. [Again, this shot is taken looking back up the way we came down.]

Shortly we approached another cobbled T-junction downhill, overlooking railings and the cathedral square below. Parked to the left of said T-junction was a Policia Locale car. Great! Now what? Mercifully, rather than being annoyed, the policeman proved very helpful, though he probably justifiably thought us utterly barking. In a rather pointless attempt to explain, I muttered “satnav”. He pointed us left around the junction (and his police car), then right around a 180° turn down into the cathedral square, across the front of the cathedral before exiting the square on a slightly wider road. We could then turn izquierda [left] onto something resembling a proper road, i.e wider and tarmac rather than cobbled.

We were finally out of the maze. If I hadn’t had to drive, I’d have been trembling with relief.

My phone rang. We were overdue and leader Andy wondered what was happening. What indeed? You’re never going to believe this. “We’ll be with you in a couple of minutes” (barring further disasters).

We arrived at the intended parking area, found the correct entry point and surveyed poor ol’ Frodo. The plant did no damage, mercifully, and the street sign made but a small, relatively superficial mark on the high off-side moulding.

Next time I’ll drop a U-turn, even if it means going back the wrong-way down a deserted one-way street. It’d be the lesser of two evils.

Now I was free to tremble.

I’ll keep this one fairly brief.

Our campsite, FozCamp, was very pleasant with a slope that required judicious use of levelling ramps. It was essentially on the coast though there was a road in between the site and the sea. The couple running the site were delightful.

We actually had grass, for once, which we couldn’t make use of it because what was not pleasant was the weather; we had two days with frequent rain and wind.

In one of the breaks in the rain we took the coastal footpath into Foz itself, a meandering walk of about 30 minutes watching breakers on the coastal rocks. Foz itself I would probably describe as utilitarian, the buildings being not particularly attractive.

There is a more direct return route to the campsite on foot, cutting out the twists and turns of the coastal path, which takes about 15 minutes.

Leader Andy recommended one restaurant which, sadly, was one of those closed on a Monday. Francine and I wandered back in on Monday to look at other options intent on finding some seafood. We eventually settled on Casa Damian and chose a Parillada de Pescada, a fish platter. When it arrived, the platter was huge – too huge, truth be told.

The platter was mainly composed of several large sections of large fish, though it did include some token seafood – clams, which I thought were excellent though Francine found them too rich with butter and garlic, and scallops. A lot of this was always going to go back.

The restaurant was very busy with Spanish; we seemed to be the only foreigners there. The menú del día was very popular but with three courses these are usually too much food for us at lunch (said the man with a massive platter of fish). The idea of tinned peaches for dessert didn’t grab, either.

Once we could move again, we tried to walk off our excess of food.

Or Cathedral Beach, as we call it in English.

This is a tourist honeypot beach with some admittedly impressive rock formations. As you approach, you instantly know that it’s a honeypot because there is extensive parking rammed with cars and motorhomes. The approach paths are also full of humanity. There is only a two hour window when you can visit, that being an hour either side of low tide.

Our timing on this day really could not have been worse. The sky was heavy with rain clouds and it didn’t take long before they began discharging their contents. The only bright side was that a full rainbow appeared which Francine managed to snap.

You have to make reservations to get a slot for your visit and Andy had booked us in for 11:00. We assembled and duly descended the steps down onto the rain-pitted sand of the beach to join many others, a lot of whom were sensibly holding umbrellas. We had our waterproofs with hoods.

Approaching the main photogenic formations there was something of a bottleneck. A slight scramble over some rocks was needed for those intending to keep their shoes (mainly) dry. The problem was that there was one preferred route over the rocks with a line of people waiting, or not, on either side. we needed road work traffic lights. Francine took off her shoes and waded through the side puddle to avoid the queue. She wanted a paddle in the sea anyway and pronounced the water warm, which was a bit of a surprise..

There is a single arch formation, a little like Durdle Door in the UK. Further on are a couple of aligned arches mirroring each other. Naturally, these are the formations everyone wants to photograph. Also naturally, many folks dangle around hoping for a people free shot while they, themselves, foil the attempts of others to get people free shots. How Francine managed to grab these without people I really don’t know but grab them she did.

The rain continued al the time we were on the beach. The whole scene would be so much better in good weather but these were the cards we were dealt.

We made the rest of the journey to Foz.

For some reason the name of this place was proving difficult to hang on to. Francine had an aide memoire word: Tapioca. In my case, Tilapia sprang to mind.

Whatever it was called it was a long hop for this itinerary of about 200 kms but it was broken by a tour of Sidra Crespo. Leader Andy’s partner, Pati, is Spanish and did an excellent job of simultaneous translation as the head lady explained their processes.

Spanish sidra is a dry, flat affair but they have ways of trying to inject some life into it. These include pouring it into a glass from a great height or using a tabletop pump device which siphons it out of a botte into a glass in a holder. Either way, the trick is to pour only a mouthful at a time, which can be drunk before it loses the added air.

Following the sidra tour there was, of course, the obligatory gift shop where we bought a bottle together with some smoked cheese; leader Andy thinks cheese makes a good accompaniment.

After pausing at a bar in the nearby town for coffee and a bocadillo [sandwich], we headed off to our clifftop campsite at Tapia de Casariego. Levelling proved a bit tricky – could’ve done with higher ramps so Frodo was at a bit of an angle – but it was a well equipped campsite with the reception supplying bread avoiding the need to go downhill into town.

The clifftop provided some great views of waves crashing on rock formations. I’d been wanting an opportunity to get the tripod out and play with my Big Stopper ND filter to smooth out the water. Here it was, though given all the long grass at the cliff edge, getting the tripod settled and stable – there was a stiff breeze – was quite a challenge.

At low tide, a modest collection of waders was working along the water’s edge.

Early on our second morning, I found Francine sitting on rocks at the top of the beach, not wanting to spoil the smooth sand with her footprints. I understood completely, it did look pristine.

Our visit to Tapia de Casariego ended on our second evening with a great team meal down near the harbour in town. Naturally, we lubricated our taste buds first with a few drinks overlooking the harbour. After drinks, Andy’s restaurant choice kept us well supplied with a wonderful variety of raciones.

Everyone had to walk both ways in and out of town ‘cos taxis – there were apparently three – were notable by their absence, for a variety of reasons. The quality of the food was such that it was all worthwhile, though.

Luxury, a 3-night stop. Our campsite was a couple of kilometres out of town. We managed to get a decent enclave in the campsite for our little collection of motorhomes.

On our first full day we walked down hill for a visit to the Tito Bustillo prehistoric cave. It is named after one of its discoverers who later died in a climbing accident. Numbers on tours into the cave are strictly controlled and leader Andy had a booking for 11:00.

This is archaeology and prehistory so it isn’t exactly my cup of tea but seeing some of the cave paintings was quite interesting. The tunnel into the main chambers of the cave was about 600m long. Photography is not allowed in the cave so you’ll have to use your imagination. The paintings featured horses and deer, for the main part.

We’d been underground for about 75 minutes before emerging back into daylight and crossing the bridge over the river Sella into the main part of town for a coffee. After our coffee group split up Francine and I went in search of a restaurant for what leader Andy refers to as sea monsters; he is not a seafood fan. We found a pleasant but slightly windy restaurant and enjoyed yet more zamborinas [scallops] this time supplemented by a classic pulpo a la Galega [octopus on potatoes sprinkled with paprika]. Being on foot, we did, of course, have another bottle of white wine.

Andy did the group proud in the evening catering for a 12-person barbecue on relatively limited cooking facilities. Some of us chipped in to assist with other offerings including various salads and a bowl of padron peppers which I prepared for a starter. Afterwards I brought out my box of Orgasmos which turned out to be rather unexciting biscuits. They did, however, cause the required level of amusement. I have to say they are grossly oversold. What else did I expect?

We were left to our own devices for our second day in Ribadesella but of course, being seafood fans, Francine and again wandered down into town in search of lunch. We found a restaurant with an appealing menu in the more sheltered opposite end of the harbour area.

On the menu here were navajas [razor clams] which we had been keen to get for a while. Navajas literally means knives in Spanish. They do look a bit like a cutthroat razor. Ordered these without a second thought and when they came, they turned out to be the sweetest, most delicious navajas that we could remember eating. They can a little gritty but theses were not; quite superb.

Our second choice was a bit of a disappointment, to be honest. We’d ordered calamar which should have been squid but what we were given was a chunky cuttlefish. This really was one of Andy’s sea monsters. I think this would more normally be called sepia. It was OK but it has to be said cuttlefish is not my favourite.

We’d ordered a third dish which was, in truth, a bit over the top. It was interesting though. This was a local morcilla [black pudding] which, we discovered, was wrapped in seaweed. The morcilla was fine but it was served on tortos, maize flour discs which were little more than sponges that soaked up lashings of cooking oil. Aubergine slices can soak up a lot of oil but it ain’t got nothing on tortos. Having taken an experimental bite, we didn’t eat them.

Francine was aware of a curiosity in Ribadesella, which we went in search of. This was the escalera de colores, a coloured stairway. A local artist had the idea of people turning up, painting a step and writing a sentence on it. It’s a nice idea that was narrower than I expected, between a couple of buildings, but it’s quite long and does add a splash of colour to the neighbourhood.

On our way to Ribadesella, we made an intermediate stop at Llanes. There is a very useful but quite rough parking area for motor vans on the edge of town. Once parked and assembled we walked a circuitous route into town along the clifftops where there was some spectacular wave action against the cliffs. I wasn’t expecting such an opportunity and did not have my camera to play with its built-in ND filter function. Lose 10 points – should’ve known better.

We paused at a café for, yes, a coffee, where we could also watch the traditional art of high pouring sidra [cider] into glasses held much lower down. It was done behind a floor-standing shield device for protection. Spanish sidra is flat, rather like scrumpy, so it is poured about a yard above the glass to introduce some air (and spillage if the pourer is less than accurate). If they want it fizzy, why don’t they make it fizzy? Hmmm. Tradition, I suppose.

After coffee we were free to wander for a while and went In search of seafood for lunch. We found an interesting menu outside one restaurant and went in. Six of us sat at a table whereupon a waiter came over, opened one of the menus and proceeded to go through it deleting all the interesting stuff that had originally attracted us in, muttering “no possible”,“no possible”, “no possible”. We got up and walked out.

Three of our number chose to wend their way back, things proving too difficult. Eventually we three remaining musketeers, found another restaurant ostensibly offering zamboriñas [scallops] and rabas [squid] served with squid ink allioli. They don’t seem to call squid calamari in these parts. Happily this restaurant did actually have what its menu offered. We sat and enjoyed a very decent lunch, though at lunchtime they do seem to expect you to order a larger meal.

The Picos de Europa have an enviable reputation for being very picturesque. We were going to find out.

We drove up the Desfiladero de la Hermida, a canyon-like road to Potes, or TES-PO if you read the road. Why do they think writing “PO” below “TES” on the road helps, just because that’s the bit you come to first? When you see both syllables in a single view, you naturally read top down and “TES” is at the top. This approach looked even sillier as, a few days ago, we were apparently approaching DER-TAN-SAN. Oo-er.

On our way up the Desfiladero de la Hermida were three sets of lengthy single track, traffic light controlled roadworks causing delays. One of these had one lane of the road missing completely though rather than having collapsed, it may be being widened; I couldn’t quite figure out which.

At one of the roadwork sections, a cyclist was in front. He waved the car in front of us past but then entered the narrow section so that we had to follow him at cycling speed. Being an electric bike, he was doing quite well but we did feel a bit hampered. When he could, he pulled off into the newer road section beyond the traffic cones so we could continue. What a nice man..

We had been assigned very pleasant pitches on the top terrace of our campsite. We were at a mere 400m altitude but the views of the higher peaks of the Picos were a joy to behold.

There was a restaurant on the campsite where we had a group meal. Most of the menu was decidedly tedious but the menu del diá held some interest: a local stew/soup, whose name I can’t remember, with masses of chickpeas and a smattering of sausage, lamb and cabbage. The soup, the cooking broth, was served first, separately. With a combination of meat and pulses it was a bit like a French cassoulet though, decent though it was, a rather pale shadow of one.

The following morning we joined a group wander for the 2 kms trek down into Potes. Happily, there was a good footpath running beside the road all the way.

We walked past the local market to get to the tourist attraction here which was the Torre del Infantado, a chunky, square, stone tower housing exhibits from history. The basement level featured weapons and instruments of torture. Well, there’s a surprise. On higher levels were somewhat more peaceful illustrated historical manuscripts. I found the interior panelling of the tower the most captivating; it was only plywood but the patterns on the surface were very appealing.

Back at the campsite, I did lash out on a bottle of Orujo in the campsite shop. Leader Andy described Orujo as a Spanish brandy but, in truth, it was much more like a Spanish version of grappa. “Cold!”, exclaimed the man who sold it to me. I put it the freezer to comply.

We moved on to Caravanning Oyambre, just outside Comillas. This was a pleasant enough campsite with a pleasant enough bar, which deserved sitting at just to check that the beer was also pleasant enough. It was.

The site is “close” to Oyambre beach; close if you think a 2km walk makes it close. I had to correct my impression that the site was more or less right beside the beach. Francine and I wandered down to check it out.

There are a few campsites here, better avoided by sane folks, that are pretty much full of the would be surfing community. Yes, the beach attracts surfers in their droves, though for a large part of the time they seemed to be walking about the sand carrying their surfboards rather than attempting to ride waves with them.

The main tourist attraction in these parts is the first house ever designed by Antoni Gaudí, he of Barcelona cathedral fame, el Capricho. It was begun in 1883 and, unlike its much larger and more famous sibling, was actually finished (in 1885). Leader Andy had arranged a couple of cabs to take us down the 5kms or so into town so we could admire it.

I managed to damage my head on entering the first MPV-like taxi with a lower-than-usual sliding door – ‘t was hiding behind my hat brim, guv. I just about managed to avoid denting the car’s doorframe.

When we got to señor Gaudí’s (over)ornate house, I can’t say that I did admire it. According to the Rough Guide, “it has a whimsical tower adorned, like most of the exterior, with glazed handmade sunflower tiles”. In fact, you really can’t see anything but glazed sunflower tiles, so thickly coated with them is it.

In all honesty, I thought it was a pretty ugly monstrosity. Whimsical or not, in my view it takes more than going overboard on gaudy [read Gaudí?] decoration to make a good architect.

As one might expect, after visiting the house we repaired to the port to find a glass of reality correction fluid.

A mere hour or so away from Santander was our third área de autocaravanas and it was the most densely packed yet. This is not a place that you come for the pleasure of camping. We were actually luckier than most in having pitches on the highest terrace looking across the lower terrace to the reportedly picturesque [read tourist trap] village beyond. some of our pitches were around a slight curve so had a little more space.

Santillana del Mar is a medieval village and one of the honey pot destinations of Spain with its reputation of being the most attractive village in the country. Having got installed, Francine and I wandered down the short distance, less than a kilometre, to the village itself to see if we could find some interesting seafood for lunch. Our leader, Andy, makes a big thing of strongly disliking what her refers to as “sea monsters” but we can’t get enough.

We succeeded. One restaurant with an open-air terrace at the rear, away from the bustling street, offered some interesting menu options.  We plumped for zamboriñas [scallops] and pulpo a la plancha [griilled octopus] which, as seems usual for octopus, came on some potato, in this case mashed. ‘T was very good especially, as nobody was driving, when washed down with a bottle of white wine. We think we saw an Egyptian Vulture cruising about overhead, not that I was equipped for it.

We walked off lunch looking at more medieval streets, eventually sitting down at the Parador in the Plaza Mayor, the main square, for a beer, accompanied by some of our travelling companions.

A classical tourist trap shop in the square was selling gaudy pink boxes, decorated with gender symbols, of Orgasmos. I had no idea what they might be but how could I resist? I thought they might be useful at a group BBQ that we expecting a little later in the trip.