Santillana del Mar, June 08 and Comillas, June 09

 This being a rest day, I luxuriated over my coffee mix until 7:15 at which time I commenced a nine mile circular walk that had major ups and downs as in literally.  Even though very little was on actual path, it was, for the most part, a beautiful walk.  (I did not realize but the end of the route will be the beginning of my route tomorrow.) 

This photo of the cobblestoney streets did not make it into yesterday´s post.  It is a great look but it slows you down:

Beautiful scenery as reported:

This bovine did not make a rez at a good AirB&B:

This one did:

More beautiful scenery, the kind that gives you that great feeling of happiness for just being in it:

Yes, I did get to see the sea!

Big and wide!

After a little lunch taken in my room, I set off for the zoo, about a mile away.  It was a most excellent zoo.  One of its clever features was the painted footprints that kept you in the right direction that being the one they wanted you to take:

I was most pleased about that.

Why this orangutang was wearing a cardboard sun hat I do not know since it was not at all sunny:

A dove whose feathers look as if they have had a perm.  Name: paloma rizada, which means, yup, curly dove:

It is difficult to resist taking a shot of red birds.  The pink ones are pretty, too!

Somewhere between the leopards and the lions, a ding on my phone alerted me that four hostages had been rescued by the IDF.  It was a moment!

The butterfly house had lots of butterflies!  When I saw a large blue one for a split second, I thought of Nabokov, who, aside from being an author and a professor, was a  lepidopterist of some note.  He spent much energy in pursuit of a certain species of blue butterfly.  (See—or read Speak Memory.)

Me, I was after this one with the red design on its wings:

What a handsome fellow that python is:

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A lemur (I am pretty sure it is a lemur even though it has some raccoon-y stripes):

Photos taken through wire fences do not do the subject justice, but this colorful fellow was too marvellous to be left out.

Of a truth, I deleted a ton of photos.  The zoo was full of delights, critters huge and critters tiny, many varieties of tails, colors, shapes, fur, feathers, habits and whatnot you have all been to zoos, so you know!  But—given the choice, would they be here for our pleasure?  (Maybe the lazy ones who like getting a good dinner served on a regular basis.)

The grade C supermarket was supposed to be open until 9:00 p.m., according to the website, but it wasn´t.  After all, this is Saturday.  Stores are getting ready for Sunday.  Fortunately, there was a class A supermarket about 15 minutes from the hotel in the other direction, so tomorrow and Monday until arrival at destination are taken care of.  It helps when you don´t need much variety in your diet!

Rain most of the way to Comillas.  Somewhat demanding  but pretty route, almost all on pavement.  I am getting used to that! 

Calle Mayor (Main Street) in an unnamed town:

Speaking of names, it is most extraordinary that Google Maps knows the names of all the streets, even those in the middle of nowhere, despite there being no street signs.  So if any of the towns want to know the names their streets, they can go to Google Maps to find out!

Left Santillana del Mar at 6:40 and reached hotel at 1:00.  No desire to budge from my room for the rest of the day.