Santander and then the harsh reality of Pompey

We were more than sad to leave the splendour of the Leon hotel. However, we had an appointment with a big Brittany Ferries ship to make and the plan was to spend the night beforehand close to the terminal in Santander. 

Driving towards the coast, we had, horror, some clouds but the snow capped mountains made up for that:

The hotel was on the seafront area of the town so we had a gentle trip to Santander and then a little urban traffic to get to the hotel Gran Victoria.  One coffee stop on the way and as it is mainly downhill and the traffic was kind, the car was rather economical:

2.5 tons of car, heavily laden with our gear and 2 bikes. We were pretty pleased with that. 

Our expectations of the hotel were not high but we were pleasantly surprised. Apart from the tight space in the underground car park, all was well and the set menu late lunch that we had was very good, copious quantities of food and it included a bottle of Cune Rioja  Not the usual cheaper stuff. You can see how close we were to the water:

An ideal place as the trip to the ferry check-in was only about 10 minutes the next morning. All went well, the ferry was on time and apart from a VERY annoying car tour lot who took over the lounge in the evening for a "prize giving" event with much squealing and yelling over each other, enjoyable.

Priority disembarkation was something we'd debated but decided to pay a little bit more for. We are so glad that we did. Third vehicle off the ferry after the usual Portsmouth delay as one of the ramps was not working properly. We were third thanks to a member of that annoying car touring trip lot who noisily started his sports car and roared off the ferry without being released by the ship's crew. How he didn't rip off  his car spoilers on the ramps at the speed he was travelling is a miracle. He went the wrong way once in the port area, roared through the customs check and seemed in rather a hurry to get somewhere, We hope he did it in one piece and with no more points on his licence.

We were still fast enough and did the short run up to the very ordinary but very cheap Premier Inn at Port Solent. For an overnight stay after a late evening ferry arrival, it was fine. Here is a borrowed pic from their website:

Yes, not quite the same architectural splendour as the Parador in Leon..... We knew we were back.

After some sleep, we walked to the nearby Costa for breakfast and had the reality shock of UK prices again. Also the realisation of what a scruffy messy country we are now - litter everywhere from the various take-away food places in the area, plenty of cigarette butts laying around and the blight of loads of broken glass too. Reality was harsh and continues to be so.

Cuidad Rodrigo and Leon

The route back to the ferry was planned as a bit of a treat. Two Parador hotels on the way to Santander, both of which were reported to have good food and be "different". The first, at Cuidad Rodrigo was certainly that, and in a good way too.

Driving there, the half-Dutch crew felt very at home when she spotted a bunch of windmills (or Molen for the Language nerds):

Not at all what you would expect heading through rural Portugal.  This one was a kind of experiment, built to lure tourists to stay in them. The area is a national park and pretty lovely anyway. Not sure it needed fake windmills to enhance it but each to their own as they say.

Back in Spain, Cuidad Rodrigo town is nothing that special, apart from the walled old town area up on the hill. The wall is still in place with tiny entrance arched gates, so narrow we had to fold in the door mirrors just in case. Then a twisty turning route to the hotel followed through almost deserted little alleyways. The hotel building is an old castle. You know it is old as it had a re-build in 1372. Luckily the Parador hotel conversion added some more mod-cons to that work:

We had a great corner room, looking over the river:

Some of the staff were a little bit stiff in their behaviour:

but the rest were ultra-friendly and helpful. The waitress at dinner time spoke less English than we do Spanish so Google translate was our friend. Glad we persevered though, it was excellent. Sadly our itinerary only allowed one night there. Again, somewhere we will happily return to.

We'd visited Leon before and liked the city. We particularly liked the look of the Parador hotel there and so we went big and treated ourselves to a couple of nights in the place. We were spoiled rotten, given an upgraded room at the front of the building, looking over the square and river:

The transformation of the interior was quite something too:

with oodles of space, lovely cloister areas to walk and sit in:

all wrapped up in this gorgeous exterior:

Yes, an impressive place to stay. We did some man-maths and rationalised the cost as very good value since car parking was free! 

In the city, things started badly. An excellent coffee shop that we'd visited on our last trip here was shut for a couple of days. Horror. So, after checking Mr Google we found another and were surprised to be offered some free Tapas to go with the two Cafe con Leche. In Leon it is customary to have some free food item given with a drink. Our favourite cafe had slices of home-made cake. This place had tapas. Oh, the coffee was really cheap too.

Luckily, on our second day, the top rated cafe was open again and we enjoyed their excellent coffee, free cake and were way happier than the miserable folks seen in this picture:

Not sure why they looked so gloomy - perhaps there was bad news on the phones that they were addicted to.  Or maybe they had just filled up their cars and were contemplating the Iran / USA / Israel war fuel prices. Whatever, we were way happier.

We'd been told to go and visit the cathedral and being obedient types, we did so:

Yet another impressive demonstration of the power and wealth the church had / has here:

The stained glass was very very old and very very beautiful indeed:

We felt suitably regal, returning to our rather lavish upgraded room for the evening and contemplated the next move, to Santander and the ferry home.