Camino del Norte 10 – Cliffs

Only 14km walking today, plus a ferry, to get from Guemes to Santander.

We started out today with one of those moment when the entire day’s walking was laid out before us like a map. In the distance we could see the cliffs we would be climbing, the beach we would traverse, and in the far distance Santander.

Even though we’d had breakfast, we stopped for a juice after only 4km in a little village that was a hive of activity thanks to a regional bike race. 

After the juice, we tackled the cliffs. This was not my happy place, and it lasted a long time. We were never in any real danger, I suppose, but that didn’t stop my brain telling me that we were.

We came down from the cliffs onto another of these huge beaches with which we are becoming familiar. Huge, wide beaches that stretch for kilometers. They do make for excellent walking.

At the end of the beach we caught a ferry to Santander. We have two nights in Santander and no real agenda beyond Jennifer having some meetings. So once we have checked into our hotel – our room has its own spiral staircase up to a it’s own turret, and we are pretty thrilled by that – we went and had a very long lunch.

Now we are big fans of Basque cheesecake. Who could not be? It turns out the answer to that is: Everyone else in Spain. The minute we went over the border into Cantabria, Basque cheesecake disappeared from the menu, and was replaced by bog-standard cheesecake like we get at home. Then today we learnt about Quesada, or Cantabrian cheesecake. It’s more jelly than creamy and leans into cinnamon, and its very very nice.