The Way

My Dad recently asked me how it is we are walking through fields one day and a major city like Bilbao the next, and did that mean we were walking through endless suburbs half of the time?

Well yes.

And no.

The track takes us across just about every type of track and field there is in northern Spain. Sometimes we´ve got a quiet muddy forest track all to ourselves, other times we share a major highway with semi-trailers. Sometimes the track takes us through tiny old villages and sometimes we walk right into the middle of a big city.

We´ve been up mountains, through green valleys, across beaches over rocky outcrops and headlands. It can be beautiful.

But sometimes it doubles up and backtracks and goes through the most awful stretch of road for no reason, or through what once was a lovely and very significant village that is now dwarfed by a huge motorway viaduct or massive housing estate of ´chalets´.

So sometimes we just get the bus :)

Here are some examples of the way we´ve been walking.

This was a beautiful valley with just a smattering of old old farmhouses and animals left alone - we didn´t see any people at all.

A very old cobbled street in Santillana Del Mar
A beach near Somo just before we hopped on a ferry to Santander

The track tries to take the original pilgrims route as much as possible (whatever the original route was...i imagine it changed just a bit over the centuries!) so we come across ruins quite a lot. Here´s Stef walking over an old aquaduct. Just because it´s there.

The Guggenheim!

We´ve taken the Northern Route of the camino rather than the apparently much easier and cheaper main route (the Camino Frances) because we really miss the sea. The track veers towards and away from the ocean each day and it´s always best when we´re right beside it.

Fantastic old lighthouse and fort and church on the headland at Castro Urdiales.

We´ve seen so many horses on this trip. Especially tiny ones. This photo is actually from our very first day walking, along the spectacular headlands out of Hondarribia. We also go through or past fields with goats, cows, sheep, sheep dogs and lots of chickens.

This way! We spend our days searching for these sometimes elusive yellow arrows, pointing the way to Santiago. I can just imagine the thoughts going through the yellow arrow artist´s mind when deciding where they should go. ¨hmm. shall I put one at eye height at this confusing interstiong? No I´d best save the paint for that long straight stretch where there is no other route to be mistaken for the Camino. Yes I´ll use it all on that historic wall over there...´