Day 9 Portugalete to Castro-Urdiales

Cloudy and a bit breezy when I left Portugalete around 8.30, good conditions for one of the longer sections leaving The Basque Country/Euskadi and entering Cantabria. I made fast progress deciding to chunk the day up into 3 lots of 10k which would just about take me to Castro-Urdiales. I stopped for coffee around 10.30 in Playa de Arena z(extra blip) which I had outside admiring the beach. Then the heavens opened, the breeze became a strong chilly wind straight off the Bay of Biscay, and it was glorious. I felt quite safe because there was always a barrier, usually a fence, between me and cliff edge, and time seemed to go very quickly. Easy terrain and light walking.

A short diversion to look at the remains of an iron ore mine
I stopped for a picnic lunch in the shelter of church porch in Ontón with a French couple who I hadn’t met before. We decided to opt for the slightly shorter route continuing along the coast, the downside being we would have to walk along a main road for the last 6 or 7k. This was OK and not terribly busy, the drivers here are mostly very courteous and leave walkers plenty of space.

I spied a Lidl as I walked into Castro-Urdiales and stocked up on emergency chocolate, Sundays are often tricky with everything closed.
My accommodation tonight is above a bakery and a busy bar, the noise is pleasantly soporific and won’t keep me awake.

The main blip is the magnificent Iglesia de Santa María de la Asunción which apparently looks very like the cathedral in Burgos. The other similarity with Burgos, which I can vouch for, is the quality of the churros and chocolate – tea tonight, couldn’t wait for kitchens to open at 9.

31k and 721m ascent, several pilgrims today but not the New Yorker.