Day 6 Wednesday 31 October Travel Day as we leave Valladolid and head into the Picos de Europra and Puente Viesgo near Santander.

Day 6 Wednesday 31 October Travel Day as we leave Valladolid and head into the Picos de Europra and Puente Viesgo near Santander.

After our continental breakfast we loaded up and prepared to put the car into the lift in order to reach ground level to head north the tires squealed on the painted floor and I completed a 3-point turn in order to head onto the elevator lift ahead.

Cloudy but not raining and we are under way thru the downtown streets and out onto the motorway A-67 to the north coast port of Santander.

The far off mountains demonstrate that Saturday evening’s snowfall made it down to 600 meters as snow topped mountains abound left and right. The terrain below 600 meters had no snow but looked very brown and sparse.

Stopped for coffee and refresher break but made it to Puente Viesgo as Garmin failed to find our hotel until we put the GPS coordinates into her versus a hotel name or street address. This is the first time she has acted up and I suspect she is planning on getting her revenge for the names we called her!

We had lunch at La Union Bar even though we did NOT have a reservation. It is a holiday Puente( weekend )and  extended families, as a rule, go out to eat all together! Paul had menu of the day: Alubias blancas followed by hamburgesa and French fries (the hamburger is from the local beef the Tudanca beef while Jane had a smoked salmon and pepper salad.(awesome!)

Our hotel Gran Balanerio includes full access to the Spa. Our first visit included full medical questionnaire in case one of should croak while enjoying the Spa circuit too much. Water jets to soothe each muscle group, five different saunas, Turkish steam baths and outside next to the river the jacuzzi is maintained at 38 degrees C.  Then you plunge into a cold pool! Plunging was not on my radar! We signed all the forms and then had a 15 minute tour with the lovely attendant who explained each of the different pools and best methods to unwind without drowning. We opted not to use the saunas because of recent surgery and treatments, it is not recommended. After a full hour we were both revived and re-invigorated from the mineral waters from the hot springs. The water was not hot, just comfortable.

Dinner this evening consisted of a wander across the lawn to the hotel’s cafeteria in a completely separate building the two facilities have an underground walkway between them that includes birds singing and several huge lighted pictures of forest scenes and other natural highlights.