There are five of us at the albergue in Cobreces, Spain, sitting out in the sun journaling, with a view of the ocean to our front and white-tipped mountains to our rear. Nobody knows exactly how far we walked today. Way markers that included distances between towns were not consistent with the distances in my English guide book, which were also different from the distances in Birte’s German guidebook. I’m guessing by the number of hours we walked that we covered a little over 31 kilometers.
The entire route today was on asphalt, which wasn’t fun, but it was a nice day, with periods of full sun, which felt nice on the skin. Normally, I would walk for a few hours alone in the morning, but as our little band had to catch the train for a short distance from Boo de Pielagos to Mogro to cross a bridge on which pedestrians are not allowed, we all ended up walking together for the day.
We stopped a few times: once for coffee and tortilla in Viveda, once to explore the town of Santillana, and once to visit the 18th-century Church of San Martin, which was, much to our surprise, open to visitors. The church is a spectacular stone structure with a Baroque facade and two giant towers flanking a central arch. I spent an extra-long time inside because Ave Maria was playing over the speakers. Such good music for the spirit.
We were all quite pleased with our visit to Santillana Del Mar, a picturesque medieval village built out of stones. In the Middle Ages, many of the townsfolk became wealthy from their wool and linen production. The philosopher, Jean-Paul Sartre, called Santillana the most beautiful village in Spain, and while I haven’t seen every village in Spain to compare, I agree with Sartre that the village is quite spectacular. The town has recently become a tourist mecca, with souvenir shops filling the ground floors of nearly every home in town. If I had come here only twenty years ago, those ground floors would have been filled with cows and other barn animals.
We had a fun time in Santillana. A group of French tourists took an interest in us while we were sitting on a stone bench eating cookies and pastries. They oohed and aahed over our commitment to the pilgrimage, wanting to talk to us about our experiences so far and to take our photos. For a few minutes, our little band of pilgrims was part of the tourist draw to Santillana.