A piece of the cross?
Sunday morning. A hard climb. Closer to heaven. Got to get there before the tour buses.
A mile above the campsite there’s the Monasterio de Santo Toribio de Liébana. Above that there’s a lookout point and the Ermita de Santa Catalina.
It’s the Ermita I’m interested in.
A small chapel, with a three bell tower, and attached by a modern roof, a lookout tower of perfect proportions.
In the lookout, three simple concrete floors.
A rolled steel staircase.
And in the room at the top a large window in each wall commanding a view the like of which most will never see.
I was alone as the sun rose over the mountains bringing warmth to this heavenly place.
I followed The Camino higher. At times the stupidly steep loose path challenged the climb. Coming down is harder, when you need to reach for support you’re offered blackthorn, wild rose. The pilgrim’s penance.
By the time I’d got back down to the monastery the motorbikes, buses and cars had started arriving and the moment was lost.
They’d come to see the cross. The monastery apparently holds the largest remnant of the cross Jesus hung from.
Today is the Festival of the Cross and they’ll flock here from morning until night.
Potes.
We’re camped in a large busy site 30 minutes walk from Potes.
The English are here. The campsite is a destination for British bikers and van travellers. There are even more Dutch, they outnumber even the Spanish.
In the town there’s music all day.
Pipers wander the medieval streets, accompanied by drums. The bars are full. Families meet for drinks, food, conversation, lots of conversation. Old friends. Tourists. Folk who only come to town once a year. Wearing their very best clothes, whether they’re comfortable or not.
Artisan Products.
In a shop selling artisanal goods the range includes fire waters, flick knives, walking sticks and sausages.
Orujo, neat, or flavoured with herbs, honey or chocolate.
Soup mix – a vac packed selection of meats and the requisite fava beans.
Twenty cheeses. Some to make you cry.
Hunting gear. Slingshots. Crazy knives.
Herbs. Bunched. Dried.
We buy green Orujo for a neighbour who helped with an emergency this week. The challenge will be leaving it unopened until presenting to him.
A year ago in Potes.
A year ago we discovered the bar El Bodegón.
It was an immediate favourite.
Back home, talking about the trip with friends who have walked The Camino, we realised that their favourite bar was our favourite too.
El Bodegón is overseen by the indefatigable Budgie Bob. Except, careful listening revealed that Bob is in fact called Carlos and has nothing to do with budgies.
Carlos El Canario commands an expansive bar, observing every customer rather as an auctioneer might.
There’s no need to move from your seat. El Canario’s eye will pass over you every few minutes and a barely perceptible nod towards your glass will see you served something similar.
When it’s time to pay he’ll remember your whole evening’s indulgences and recite your shame for all to hear.
All this is beyond standard for a class act barman, but still doesn’t touch the skill of Carlos El Canario.
What truly sets Carlos apart is the whistle with which he can communicate as diverse a message as where to sit, that your order has been acknowledged, or to sound a cheeky alarm when you use your card to pay.
Regulars accept Carlos for the star he is. Visitors can’t get enough. Indeed, here we are back after twelve months, just to hear him sing.
Climb. Climb to the eagles.
Busy noisy Potes
Twenty kms down the road (9kms climbing steeply) near the village of Piñeres there’s a parking area with good toilets, fresh water and even a bar. Overnight in a van for €8.
Higher still there’s magic.
It’s a tough hack up to the viewpoint.
For a while you’re in woodland. You see trees. Big deal. After twenty minutes of pulling hard the view opens out. A view of mountains and down to the gorge you drove through earlier. That gorge road is now 1200m below the peaks. Straight down. An inconceivable drop.
Hold still.
Watch.
Watch for a long time.
And you’ll see the vultures soar.
Today was overcast, cool, they won’t fly today unless they’re really hungry. It takes too much energy.
I saw five Egyptian Vultures.
Next day it’s warmer, drier.
The massive Griffon Vultures are out. Perhaps 20 soar around us.
For me using binoculars is 80% frustration, 15% acceptance, and 5% joy and astonishment. I should practice more to shift the numbers towards more positive.
Watching a single bird with binoculars is an experience. Their wing movements are imperceptible as they speed across huge distances. At times they climb so high they become specs despite their 2.5m wing span.
People come, watch, and leave. I could spend the whole day. With a comfortable bench I’d happily camp out here.
Another hill.
From our eerie it’s 20 minutes walk down through the pretty village of Cicera. From afar it’s just another Spanish mountain village. It’s only when walking through that you see at least half of the houses have been restored. Or they’re wonderful new builds that take sufficient queues from the old, but cantilever floors over curtain walls of glass with roofs that deliver shapes impossible with traditional techniques.
There’s a track through the village that goes up. Up past the old boys who sit in dappled light remembering the physical work they were once capable of. Up past the cattle who’ve come down from the high pastures.
After an hour the climb had not eased, but wound up through old chestnut woodlands whose shade kept me cool.
Chestnut. Some of the trees are truly massive with trunks of several metres girth. A notice in the village suggests many here are over 500 years old.
When you think you’re above any habitation there’ll be a pretty stone building with a terracotta pan tiled roof. The herdsman’s summer shelter. Transhumance. Probably in it’s last generation as a way of life. But perhaps it’ll continue as a lifestyle choice.
Mistake?
I’ve made a mistake on this trip.
Until last year the dog needed walking morning and night. I’d leave Minty in bed and off we’d go.
Last September was our first trip without Polly, but I continued the routine, walking further, harder than I’d done before. Sometimes I ran (hardly elegant, but effective at calming this mind).
This time I didn’t.
Not until Potes.
For the last five mornings I’m back on it. I’ve pushed it. Marching up hills the like of which you’ll never see in Cornwall.
After a couple of hours I get back and breakfast tastes better than anything imaginable. More important is the sense of knowing a place better for its slow reveal. Speed is an experience. Speed can be the death of experience.
The Picos have their talons in me. I hope to come back and take on some of the long paths through these hills.
Santillana del Mar.
Filmset pretty town on the pilgrimage route and very much on the tour bus route.
There’s very little property here that doesn’t look just right. Window boxes of geraniums, citrus trees potted on the first floor balconies.
Cobbled streets.
No traffic in the old town.
Just traffic of the coaches. Some tours even wear uniform tee shirts. And they’re not teenagers.
Everywhere sells a cheese that’s dessert sweet.
Tat shops. But good tat. Stuff you certainly don’t need, but that you just might want.
And expensive jars of anchovies.
Minty booked an end of tour dinner at Restaurante Gran Duque. 40 covers. Two sittings, one for lunch, one for dinner. He cooks. She waits on. Together they have created quite an understated wonder.
Wow!
We only managed a course each and shared dessert.
Fabulous food. Fabulous wine. Good price.
It was only on my way out that I saw it has been Michelin listed for decades.
Santander.
Santander needs a visit. If you park up early for the ferry you can wander 10 minutes into town.
Elegant in the Spanish way.
Apartment living is the way of life. Dressing to impress is the way of life.
Here independent fashion shops sell unexpected color combinations in shapes that demand confidence of the wearer. And women of a certain age wear these creations to lunch. With the confidence to take on whatever the day brings.
Saint Just.
Only 85 driving miles from Santander. The ferry is expensive, but it pays back with time, and forced rest.
Over the hill, past the clay works, the blue pool, and the view out to the Atlantic opens up. The Longships Lighthouse. A hint of the Scilly Isles 28 miles out to sea. The mines of Pendeen. Through the chaos of the parking on St Just’s Market Square, then bump down the lane and there’s home.
After the clear blue of the Spanish sky it can be hard to love the damp blanket of mizzle St Just presents. But give it an hour, and we’ll know why this is home. Home by choice, not of inertia.
And as I sit here typing on Sunday afternoon the haunting screeches of several young buzzards provide accent against the soundtrack of the wind. Cornish Eagles!
Two photos I missed from previous posts.
We met these wonderful eccentrics in their hundred year old Austin A20 in Llanes.
Be adventurous with foreign menus, but perhaps don’t try everything.
