Weather: high cloud, 16º C

Mileage: 345 Km; Total 1,840 kms

Today we drove from Oviedo via San Vincente de la Barquera and Santillana del Mar to Bilbao. Firstly however we sought out a church but had trouble finding. Part of the problem was finding parking. This was eventually resolved when Bruce parked like a loco – whoops I mean local (picture attached of the car partly across a crosswalk). While searching for the church we noticed a statue up on a hill nearby (Monte Naranco) and instead headed for that. It turned out to be a Statue of Jesus and there were lots of people walking to it; nowhere near a pilgrimage though.

Now for some diesel. The light was on (typical for Bruce and typically annoying for Anne) but we managed to find a station before getting onto the motorway. Bruce had to ask for help as there were 2 types of diesel. The less expensive one was eventually recommended.

San Vincente de la Barquera was described by one of our travel books as being one of the oldest and most beautiful of the maritime settlements in northern Spain. While we would not agree with the description it also had a roman bridge with 28 arches. Not tall but still impressive as it remains in use. On our way back to the car a parade of expensive cars – Ferraris, Porsches, Lamborghinis and a Corvette (?) passed us to park in a plaza. Obviously there are some here not suffering financially. While it was not the Ferrari of fishing villages as we were led to believe it was a village with Ferraris!

Now off to see the Museo de Altamira, a museum of prehistoric cave paintings dating back 20,000 years. Part of the museum includes a replica of the original caves and paintings that are no longer able to be viewed due to damages arising from visitors over previous decades. The museum also had information and pictures of prehistoric paintings from other countries including Australia. The majority of discoveries worldwide however are in the northern Spain/Southern France regions.

Now for the challenge to find our hotel in Bilbao and avoid highway tolls. All went well until we ended up in an area of Bilboa that had many road closures due to construction of new roads. Unfortunately this led Billy to go in circles and then admonishing us about “not listening to him” as we had to take wrong turns etc. After taking evasive action a number times we managed to get him to take us on a route which got us to the hotel. Obviously not his fault it did add 40 minutes to our trip.

We are not sure about the location of the hotel as it appears to be a long way from the places we want to visit. This does not make sense as a lot of time was put in (by Anne) to get reasonably priced hotels close to public transport and/or the sites we want to see. Will let you know tomorrow.