Santiallna del Mar, June 07

 You would assume from the name of this town that it is on the sea.  It is not.  But I may walk to the sea tomorrow. we´ll see!  There is also the zoo, pronounced to rhyme with hoe, or mow, or sew, and the museum dealing with the Altamira Caves, and also the Torture Museum, on which I am going to take a pass even though  it is directly across the cobblestones from my hotel.  This is a cute, cobblestoney town with lots of shoppes, but they all sell one of three things;  souvenir foods, souvenir clothes, and souvenir jewelry, the last actually a subcategory of the clothing stores. Let me be clear:  the food stores all sell the same cheeses, the same cured meats, the same packaged cakes, and lots of wines, so it is less exciting than you would think.   There is one C class grocery not too far away where you are not allowed to choose your own produce because of germs and all.  The cashier runs back to the fruits during a lull to help you out, but it not wearing plastic gloves or anything!  Of course, this means that you do not know whether the nectarines selected for you are hard as a rock or on the verge of rotting.  (Mine will be ripe some time next week, maybe.)

The walk today was another total slog along highways until the last four or so miles when, if you took the longer route, you would walk part of it on a somewhat quieter road, which I did.

This burro laughed at me as I was trying to figure out where to turn.  I swear, he really did in only that way that burros do.

Scenery:

View through my window, which to see, I had to stand on a chair:

One could say that my room is charming what with the pitched ceiling and wooden beams, but if I have a bad dream like Goldie in Fiddler on the Roof and bolt up in bed, I will crack my head on one of those picturesque beams.  The lighting is like in a cave so I took the curtains off the windows, a definite improvement.  Oh, and they forgot to leave toilet paper, but chutz mi zeh (other than that), it is fine-ish.  Oh and you have to go into the hall to refresh your wi fi connection.  It is not a terrible hotel, I think I got the special room reserved for single old ladies.