It’s mid-day on Thursday and the mountains are shrouded in clouds and mist. We have some 36 hours of rain forecast and with the weekend no longer looking baked in sunshine, we have decided to swap our return crossing and will travel back from Santander tomorrow, cutting short our 6 week trip by a few days.

The highlight of the last few days was a circular cycle ride in the hills which turned out to be anything but circular. Described as an “Expert” ride on Komoot, Joe figured that with an electric bike, such a route should be achievable.

The first 10km were fine but as the roads disappeared into tracks and finally a loose gravel path over the top of the mountain, it was clear that circular route was coming to an end! I cannot imagine the path was viable with a bike.

On the way to my endpoint, I encountered the mountainside which had been terraced and fenced, lined with grape vines. Seems an incredible feat of engineering to grow grapes!

Our first visit to Cantabria, Asturias and Galicia is now over. In this segment of Spain, summer is reaching the end and cold nights are becoming more commonplace. Some of the campsites we stayed on have already closed for the season and many more will be closed by the middle of October.

Once again, the Spanish people have been friendly and welcoming and as is usual, pretty much 6 weeks without seeing a traffic jam. The coastline and mountains are very special here and I suspect we may well become more frequent visitors to this part of Spain.

Nevertheless, our big “foreign” trips for next year are in Spain (Jan – Mar) and then Portugal from the end of August. After a year in which we have enjoyed long stays in Southern Spain, Brittany, Germany and NW Spain, we also plan to see more of the UK next year as well.

Adios amigos!