From Santillana del Mar to Comillas

Hello, everyone. The last post talked a little about the thirteenth day of walking. Today's post will go on from there--is it the fourteenth day of walking if it begins two mornings after arriving in Santillana? I can't remember any more if I counted days when we rested in Bilbao.

First, a picture of the little map the ladies at the Turismo gave us.

The top right is where the Camino path enters the village on a tiny road. The village is a very popular spot to visit, and especially on weekends and holidays many local folks drive over to visit the picturesque village and also the museum about Altamira Cavern.

When we walked on, we returned to a more coastal area. We also entered the area that many people had emigrated to Latin America from, and some of them made their fortunes there and then returned to their home towns and villages. They were nicknamed Indianos after they returned, all of this being in the late 19th century I believe, and they had a distinctive style of building.

This church showed two of the very common marks of the Indiano building style: the painted walls of the building, with the gingerbread accents, and the palm tree. It is said that the Indianos, when they returned to their homes, planted palms to remember their years in the Americas. Regarding the paint, most of the Indiano painted buildings that we saw had brighter paint colors than this. Red-orange was popular.

 In Ruiloba, we saw another style of very painted building. These folks have painted murals on both of the street facing sides of their place.

At the end of the day, waiting on the front patio--or sidewalk--of the Comillas old jail for the hospitalera to return and open for pilgrims, we saw some people working (painting? cleaning?) on an old house. I want to call it an old Victorian type house. They have brought in the power lift and the men on the basket are probably 40 or 50 feet up. The sight reminded us of the time we rented the Genie TZ50 for house painting of our own.