Laredo and Santoña

On Sunday, my parents and Marga's parents went to Laredo to see the sights. On the way to Laredo, we stopped to buy the daily bread.

Erik lets Marce struggle to reach the top bread basket.

The wine section of the local supermarket.

The pescaderia.

The first place we went in Laredo was to the tunnel that leads through a mountain.

Paul, Erik, Juan, Marce and Marga.

Then we took a walk on Laredo's famous beach.

Paul wandered a little too far into the surf.

A fishing boat was closer than I've ever seen one to the beach.

What are they waiting for back there?

Paul found a toy boat to play with.

On the way back, the sun came out. Betsy was walking backwards (to retrace her steps back to town).

Marga and her mother.

Then it was time for lunch! Marce pours olive oil on the salad.

Mmmm! Squid in their own ink! "Chipirones en su tinta". They say the Spanish are the only people that eat food that is jet black.

For dessert, Marce peeled some of the "higo chumbos" ("prickly pears") that we brought back from our trip to Extremadura the previous week.

There is some poem to remember how to peel them. It goes something like, "cut off the crown, then the butt, then send it to another world," or something like that.

This is what they look like peeled.

After a short siesta, we went back to the beach, but it was cloudy again and only Erik and Paul were brave enough to enter the water.

It looks like the water is really deep, doesn't it?

Erik does his David Hasselhoff impersonation.

Then Betsy got to show of her skills at paddleball.

Marga and her parents waited patiently while Erik and his played beach games.

Time to go.

We walked along the maritime pathway for a while.

Something was funny.

We said goodbye to Marce and Juan, and went back to Colindres for dinner and bed. On Monday morning, I took my folks to see Santoña, another nearby town.

It started raining and we had to duck into a bar for a drink and some anchovy tapas.

The beach of Santoña is very close to the tip of Laredo's beach, seen here in the distance. This boat ferries people across.

Santoña's harbor.

This fisherman needed some help. Good thing my father was there.

Before heading back to Colindres, we went up on the mountain to look down on Berria beach.

That's all for today....