I tried to prevent oversleeping again by setting two alarms (I must have had a watch in addition to an alarm clock), but all that happened was I dreamt of the first alarm ringing. But there was time for breakfast on Calle Gran Via. The waiter was very casual; maybe he didn't like working the early shift. I waited for the bus, then noticed from the timetable that the first bus wouldn't get me there in time so I walked. On the way, a woman asked me for directions to the station, but at that point it was only 50 metres up the road. I made it with a few minutes to spare.
The train passed wheat fields and luxuriant stands of sunflowers, poppies and other wildflowers. Heedless beauty, who is it for? The universe is an enigma and we drive ourselves crazy trying to impute order. My reading material, Foucault's Pendulum, may have put such me in that frame of mind. The train was a Saturday morning regional diesel with motley passengers—a jacket-clad man, a country family, schoolgirls, lanky teenagers in jeans. We passed a field with a gray/brown donkey and an orange/white cat . More passengers boarded as we neared Valladolid. Then a yard with junk and hulks of cars. Later a wagon laden with cars from the Renault España factory. A fisherman stood in gumboots in a stream waiting for fish to nibble.
I decided that Valladolid wasn't interesting enough to tarry in, only apartments and industrial buildings as far as I could see, so I pressed on to Santander. But first a snack of a bocadillo with a fragrant fresh roll. At a greengrocer I picked up apples and cherries. The cherries were fantastic, a soft leaf or two showing that they had been picked recently. They were a bit tart, but the balance was good. The train was a comfortable Talgo electric service, not as costly as I had feared. Carriages had TV screens and automatic doors. Before reaching Santander we crossed the Cordillera Cantábrica where coniferous forests, convoluted valleys, fast flowing streams, stands of gorse, cattle, tunnels, mountain villages with a single petrol pump, power pylons and distant mist shrouded peaks featured. The last 60 km took 90 minutes.
Santander is inside a sheltered bay. As expected the tourist office was closed for the weekend but there was no map outside as I had hoped. I found Calle Isabel II easily. My chosen pension assigned me a room slightly longer than the bed and twice as wide. How did they get it into the room? The mattress was too soft but on the other hand everything was clean. There were sporadic noises emanating from the other rooms in the pension.
I found a cafeteria offering platos combinados, but it was mid-afternoon so the kitchen was closed. They suggested a cold dish of pickled pulpo (octopus) with bread. It was excellent. I supplemented that with a pastry from a shop where the nice lady who served me was pleased to hear a Spanish-speaking visitor.
The air was cool but didn't have the bite of inland Spain. During my siesta I had a strange dream in which I came across a Spanish couple making love in my pension room, but I told them to carry on. I couldn't remember on waking if my Spanish had been grammatical. Probably not, everything seems sensible inside a dream, but turns out to be utter nonsense on waking, if you remember anything at all after the first two minutes. Another inconsistency was that in the dream I was wearing sleep shades, but I could "see" the couple.
In the evening I admired the beautiful harbour backed by mountains gleaming in the sunset. The town inhabitants were out for the paseo and the subsequent nightlife. Public buildings were floodlit. The one on the right is the gothic cathedral. I was the object of some curiosity, although Santander, being the endpoint of the ferry from Plymouth, UK, must get many foreign visitors. I had noticed that the tariff for my room shot up after June 15. For dinner I found a restaurant serving a filling plato combinado. And that was my Saturday night in Cantabria.
The train passed wheat fields and luxuriant stands of sunflowers, poppies and other wildflowers. Heedless beauty, who is it for? The universe is an enigma and we drive ourselves crazy trying to impute order. My reading material, Foucault's Pendulum, may have put such me in that frame of mind. The train was a Saturday morning regional diesel with motley passengers—a jacket-clad man, a country family, schoolgirls, lanky teenagers in jeans. We passed a field with a gray/brown donkey and an orange/white cat . More passengers boarded as we neared Valladolid. Then a yard with junk and hulks of cars. Later a wagon laden with cars from the Renault España factory. A fisherman stood in gumboots in a stream waiting for fish to nibble.
I found a cafeteria offering platos combinados, but it was mid-afternoon so the kitchen was closed. They suggested a cold dish of pickled pulpo (octopus) with bread. It was excellent. I supplemented that with a pastry from a shop where the nice lady who served me was pleased to hear a Spanish-speaking visitor.
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