Camino:: Day 4

Camino de Santiago del Norte

Day 4 (plus a rest day!)

This is a camino of gratitude for me. Each day, I choose something I am grateful for in my life and think and journal about it throughout the day. I will share an excerpt from my journal entries at the end of each day’s post.

Day 4: Liendo to Santoña ~ 6.9 miles

21 September 20172

This was a lovely and interesting day’s walk, shorter than the last two days. In the early morning I walked up and over a cliff to a lovely view of the seaside town of Laredo. Entering the city through the old gate was magical. At the end of the promenade I walked out onto the beach to catch the ferry to Santoña.

View of Laredo Spain from the hills above — Laredo is below me. We walked all the way along the seashore way out to that point to catch the ferry.

Old gate to enter Laredo — Entering Laredo

Ferry from Laredo to Santona — You catch the ferry right on the beach!

Rest & Work Day in Santoña

23 September 20172

Occasionally I have to stop for a day to rest my bones and to catch up on the work I do while traveling: designing book interiors for clients back home. Right now, I am working on a hiking book. How appropriate! I feel so grateful that I can do this work from just about anywhere in the world!

I fell in love with this town across the bay from Laredo. I was lucky. This was a fiesta weekend in Laredo and I walked through the town on Friday early afternoon before the festivities started and thus avoided all the weekend crowds. Instead, I had a room on the second floor of the pilgrim’s albergue with a tiny balcony overlooking the plaza of Santoña.

The families gather here in the evenings, especially on the weekends, and the chatter that I hear below late into the night reminds me that I am definitely not at home. The chatter provides a comfortable backdrop to my sleep for some reason.

The food here was stupendous—really amazing! For 11 Euros, a friend and I got the menu del dia at the restaurant next door (2 courses, a pitcher of wine, and dessert). My grilled red tuna was absolutely devine, and it was followed by a dessert that was like just the custard part of cheesecake. We both had to take a siesta after that.

Pilgrim's meal of filet of tuna in Santona — Delicious pilgrim’s meal of filet of tuna. Wine is almost always included in the meal.

Fellow pilgrim pouring wine in Santona — My fellow pilgrim from Germany pouring wine for us.

Both evenings in Santoña , Marieanne (from Germany) and I visited an excellent tapas bar. The food was a work of art. It was so hard to decide what to try and they had different things each night.

How, you ask, was I able to eat anything after that full lunch?

I managed…