9/08/18 – 10-08/18 – Lierganes and Oriñón, Cantabria
We’d talked about visiting Santander (prior to Lierganes) for several weeks before going there, although neither of us knew much about it other that it is a relatively new city given a huge fire destroyed much of it some years ago, and that there are several nice beaches surrounding it.
Arriving into the city we felt uninspired by the many unattractive high rises and to top it off it was such a gloomy day with lots of rain. We arrived at our parking location, situated a few miles out of the centre, which on a sunny day would have looked lovely. We had a coffee to motivate ourselves for the walk in the rain, but then both admitted we really didn’t want to go. Again, i’m sure there was lots to see including the beaches but we felt that we wouldn’t be able to appreciate them on a day like today. Tired from the drive, we checked nearby locations and read lots of good things about Lierganes, so after half an hour, we were off again. This is one of the good things about having your home on wheels.
We parked at Lierganes train station car park and stayed there for the night for free without any problems. (GPS 43.3447965,-3.7413269) We met some friendly other campers and it felt safe. It was situated along a river bank and was literally a 5 minute walk into the centre, which is always a bonus.
Lierganes is a very small, but charismatic village set in the countryside with stone buildings. Walking around it reminded us of parts of home, Dan particular saw similarities to the Yorkshire Dales or the Lake District (without the lakes of course). Looking up into the skyline, into the distance, two mountain peeks can be seen, and many come to climb these….not us by the way, maybe if we had time we would. I called them the Twin Peaks, but really they looked like two pert boobs….yes very childish I know.
The flower displays surrounding the buildings were beautiful and impressive. The dreadlock plants were so cool too. The main centre is clearly well maintained and attracts many tourists who we joined, but it didn’t feel spoilt by this and the little souvenirs shops added to the lovely feel. We even treated ourselves to 2 small hand painted bowls for €5 – big spenders hey!
There are few nice restaurants and cafes, enough to provide entertainment for an evening. It’s an absolutely stunning village and well worth the visit, but we thought we may have got a little bored, and anyhow we needed to get going in order to meet our lovely visitor Rob at Bilbao airport on Friday night. Very exciting as we hadn’t seen him for 5 months.
It was quite a drive so we split the day up by visiting a stunning river beach at Oriñón on route to Bilbao. Of course, it was yet another doggie beach….its been all about Marley this week. It fab place, a normal beach on one side and the river beach on the other side, with the sandy bank meeting at the middle, with gorgeous mountains behind. We spent a couple of hours on the beach, chilling and having fun, and then had lunch in the van, and enjoyed the riverside view where we had pulled up. This was just a small lay by at the side of the road. (GPS 43.3950701,-3.3204269) I would definitely recommend this place to anyone with or without dogs, as its just great.
After a great day at the beach, off we went to Bilbao.
