We woke (very) early, got cleaned up, finished packing, checked out and hopped in the car for the quick drive to the airport. Even empty Santiago de Compostela is difficult to navigate with its crazy maze of old town streets. Once we made a couple of u-turns we found our way to the airport area outside of town. We refueled the car to return it to the rental agency and found that when we arrived at the rental return there was not a soul to be found. A sign with the rental car company logo instructed us to leave the car and drop the keys at an office in the airport. We grabbed our luggage from the car and made our way over to the terminal. Once inside we found the rental car office. Apparently we overestimated the waking time of the rental car company employees. The office, like the return area, was vacant and only had a key return drop box. So, we dropped the keys and checked in for our flight. With ample time before our departure we tried to burn through what remaining euros we had on coffee and breakfast pastry. Once we finished with our meager portion breakfast we sat by our departure gate and occupied ourselves with crossword puzzles and iPhone games. We also eavesdropped on a number of conversations that took place between pilgrims that met during their hikes to Santiago.

So help me, no one knows how to board a damn airplane! Here’s a quick lesson. At the gate, they call zones or rows to load a plane quickly and efficiently from the back to the front after first class and special needs have been addressed. During the course of our trip every flight boarding has gone like so: 1) Gate personnel gets on the loudspeaker to state boarding procedure. 2) EVERYONE gets up and crowds the gate. 3) The people in the row or zone being called cannot get through the crowd to board. 4) The last row or zone is called and EVERYONE boards at the same time creating a massive mess. This occurred like clockwork for our flight out of Santiago and after our short flight to Madrid it happened again when we boarded for Chicago/O’Hare. When I heard our zone get called I started to push through the crowd of idiot cattle and overheard someone say “Oh, the Americans are getting pushy.” Well yea I’m getting pushy because your dumb non-contributing zero/doesn’t know how to board a plane ass is in the way. Deep breath. OK. I’m good. We’re heading to O’Hare on an Iberia flight. You may recall that I like Iberia. The food is decent and the flight attendants are courteous and helpful. The flight back was fairly uneventful.

We landed in O’Hare and had to jump through the hoops of security, customs, then a train ride to another terminal and finally we boarded our final flight to St. Louis… on American Airlines. Let me just say that American Airlines is like riding a bus line that is worse than Greyhound. The plane felt old, smelled bad and we were seated right next to the engines. The noise was intolerable. When the flight attendant asked us what we would like to drink he had to yell at us and we had to yell back. The whole ordeal was a lesson in futility. I just shook my head and kept my earphones seated tightly in my ears. The flight from ORD to STL is a quick one and we were grateful to get away from that noisy conveyance.

Ahhhh… home again.

We rose and wandered around the hotel in search of the breakfast area and found the awesome breakfast spread. Numerous breakfast meats, variations of spanish omelette, fresh fruit, small sandwiches, fresh squeezed orange juice are just a few of the items that greeted our lit-up eyes, so we tucked in and ate our fill.

We decided that we would brave the town (on foot) again and check out the historic Catedral de Santiago de Compostela. I guess it was about time since we haven’t really sought out any cathedrals since Sagrada Familia in Barcelona. You have to see the cathedral from every side. Every facade is different, so you end up walking in a huge circle around the entire property. For many, this is the end of a pilgrimage called The Camino de Santiago (Way of St. James) and hikers called Caminos with their shells and walking sticks abound in the courtyard.

Once we felt the cathedral had been thoroughly looked at from every angle (except the inside) we decided to stroll around more of the city’s old streets to window shop as well as find a place for lunch. As the day wore on we were finding little in the way of window shopping or desirable food, so we headed back to the hotel for an amazing lunch… now if I could just remember what we had.

After lunch we headed back to the room. Tomorrow was a big day because we had an early flight and needed to return the car. It was still early, but we decided that packing what we could and prepping everything else was a good idea. We also discovered an interesting thing on the television. A bucktoothed, buxom, barely covered faux blonde was repeatedly answering incoming phone calls with “Hola! Solucion?” A math problem hung in the upper corner of the screen. Apparently, if you solved the math problem you would win the money amount that was at the bottom of the screen. There was also a timer counting down to when they would show us the answer. We came up with two potential answers to the problem (I had one and Mom had one), so naturally we made a bet on it. I insisted that we watch to find out what the answer was as callers kept coming in and the counter continued to count down. The timer finished and… nothing. They then dumped the timer and were going to count down 50 callers. Once 50 callers didn’t get it they left it open for 10 more callers. It finally ended, but we were never told the answer! The busty, bucktoothed, scantily clad woman just moved on to the next puzzle. Furious with this turn of events and the lost opportunity of being right (I love being right) we changed the channel to some old movie. Sure enough I had trouble getting to sleep because I kept hearing “Hola! Solucion?” over and over in my head.

Today was a long day of driving and at the end of it all… well I’ll get to that.

As we headed out of beautiful El Sardinero, we swore to come back and spend more time in the (hopefully) not to distant future. Following the GPS’ directions we drove and drove and drove and got lost… kinda. We happened upon an amazing little bay town of which we do not know the name. As we drove through the town we found a little roadside/bayside park and stopped to have a mid-day sandwich. As we enjoyed our sandwiches we ogled the gorgeous panoramic bay view.

After our vista view/sandwich snack side trip we got back on track. Many kilometers of driving later we arrived in Santiago de Compostela. What a maze! GPS or not this place is a mess of streets that zig, zag, double-back and make zero sense. The GPS had us on roads that I’m not too sure are roads since I got some puzzled looks from locals as I drove on them. The city is also packed with locals, tourists and caminos (more on them later) making a tired newcomer even more stressed out. Once we sorted out the address of the hotel, we found it among the mess of crazy streets, but there was nowhere to park during check in. I pull in to a bus stop and sit while my Mother heads over to the hotel to check in and find out about parking. While I’m sitting there a bus picks up and drops off passengers without any issue. Who has issue with the parked tourist sitting in the bus stop? The guy riding the street sweeper. Apparently I am sitting in HIS turnaround spot. As he begins to bark at me I shrug and see that my travel companion is approaching the car with everything sorted. Success! We head down the street find the public parking lot and head in through the side door to the hotel. However, we have somehow gotten lost and cannot find our room. So we ask a young lady who seems to work there. She runs and grabs someone who seems to understand us better and leads us to our room. I had no idea if either one of them worked there at the time. We came to find out later that both of the samaritans did, in fact, work at the hotel.

The hotel is interesting to say the least. Old architecture abounds and the building is a maze just like the streets of Santiago. Our room is somewhat subterranean, clean and and well appointed. I quickly claimed a bed and rested from the long drive and stressful arrival into the city. Once we roused ourselves from lazing we headed to the front desk for a dinner recommendation. As we headed through the labyrinth to the front desk we passed a courtyard with a sitting garden and a large bird cage full of finches. The gentleman at the front desk gave us directions to two places… in opposite directions. We headed off toward one of them in hopes that the maze of streets wouldn’t claim us as victims. We found the recommended café/bar and ordered what can only be referred to as a seafood pizza (pizza del mar I guess you could call it) and a couple of beers. I was surprised at how good the pizza was since the atmosphere of the establishment didn’t lead me to believe food was a focal point. I was happy to be proven wrong. After we finished the pizza and beers we headed back out into the hustle and bustle of Santiago’s old city streets. First we headed one way then another and finally decided that it was time to turn in. Tired and full we returned to the hotel to raid the mini bar.

Once the final stages of the Spain trip are posted motionross.com/on_the_road will become just motionross.com. The site will have more of a motorcycle news, touring, gear, rallying and camping focus. If this interests you, fantastic. If not, tough.

That is all. The final days of my trip to Spain are coming soon.

Whew! Sometimes life just gets in the way. Sorry for the delay.

So… where was I? Oh yeah, Bilbao. Our not so deluxe accommodations did not have a fancy breakfast spread like our previous hotels, so we decided to hit the road for Santander and pick up some breakfast along the way. We stopped in a town called Laredo to see what we could find for breakfast. After we parked the car near a school we walked in the direction of the beach in search of options for a bite to eat.

As we continued toward the beach we noticed some grocery stores and other random shops, but not much in the way of a place to eat. We continued our search, checked out the beach and a café that was near the entrance of the beach, but it looked deserted. After walking along the beach for a bit we realized we were HUNGRY, so we stopped in a café/bar we passed on our way to the beach called Café Venus for coffee and a sandwich. Despite the slightly smokey atmosphere (it IS a bar) we enjoyed our coffee and sandwiches in this quaint café. We also happened upon a breakfast item that we must find the recipe for. The breakfast item was called jamon y queso which we know is ham and cheese, but it was made atop sliced potatoes. A Spanish omelette (or variation of) perhaps?

With our hunger satiated, we made our way back to the car stopping at one of the grocery stores for water and some lunch items along the way. We continued our drive to Santander meandering our way through small villages and towns as well as more gorgeous scenery. We drove right on by Santander proper to an area called El Sardinero which is just on the outskirts of the city along the northern shore. Everything in this tourist area is more spread out and spacious than the older city centers we have visited so far.

The hotel is fantastic! Hotel Hoyuela is a block away from the beach and right next to the casino in El Sardinero (which is a very popular attraction). There are available parking spots right outside the main entrance. I cannot stress how rare it is to find parking right outside your hotel… anywhere we have been so far! We did have parking in front of hour hotel in San Sebastian, but that hotel was in more of a subdivision setting and certainly not close to a beach. During check-in a bell hop asked for our luggage and room number. Shocked I told him our room number in the meager spanish I could muster which amounts to “hello, how are you, goodbye, please, thank you, numbers 1-10, more, coffee, money, blue and cat.” Most of our communication was pointing, shrugging, looking confused and speaking english without realizing it. The bell hop arrived with our luggage shortly after we got into our room. The room was clean and well appointed with a crap view of the building next door. We dropped our luggage and rested for a bit before we set out to explore the caves in Altimira.

After a quick drive through some rolling countryside we arrived at the Cave Museum of Altimira. Housed in this cave are prehistoric paintings of deer, bison and horses. The original paintings and cave are inaccessible in order to conserve their natural beauty. Rather than allow people into the cave and destroy these pieces of art and history, a reproduction of the cave has been built in the museum complete with, what seem to be, excellent reproductions of the cave paintings. Going through the simulated cave is a fun experience. You learn about the original cave and its discovery in a little movie and then work your way into the cave where there are simulated dig sites as well as some interesting holographic video depictions of early cave dwellers. After checking out the cave paintings we made our way around out the rest of museum and learned more about the discoverer of the cave as well as the lives and tools of the cave dwellers. We exited the museum and walked around the grounds a bit to see if there was more to see. Confident that we had seen it all, we headed back to Santander (El Sardinero).

When we got back to the hotel we were hungry, so we set off on a wild goose chase for a bite to eat. It seems that we never could get the timing of this right and after much searching we found that we were just going to have to wait and eat late again. During our search for a bit we walked along the beach. This area is gorgeous! We really should have done one night in Bilbao and at least two here. During our walk along the beach we saw a group of young people flying a massive airfoil kite. A young lady (that probably weighed less than a bucket of sand) decided that she wanted to give it a try. Her friends tried to talk her out of it, but she persisted. With her friends telling her to brace herself and one young man holding her tight from behind they launched the airfoil. You might already see where this is going. With the airfoil in the air and her teachers confident that they told her everything there is to know, they stopped holding on to her. As soon as I saw them let her go I knew I regretted not having my camera at the ready. The wind picked up and she did not let go. Digging her heels in she was pulled a few feet and then picked up and tossed like a rag doll 15-20 feet. WHAMMO! Faceplant into the sand! Her friends checked on her to make sure she was OK and she was. Needless to say they never let her fly the kite without a spotter again.

After our walk we watched a little BBC News and then hit the hotel cafeteria for dinner. Dinner was good, but not so good that I can remember what I had at this point. We had a big drive ahead of us the next day, so we turned in as early as we could and vowed that we would come back to El Sardinero.