On Monday morning in Barcelona we made first for the train station, our first attempt to hire a car failed so we tried again at a different company, again it failed for a number of small but essential administrative reasons, large Yawn.
The trains that would allow us to take the bikes would've involved 5 changes over the course of 2 days, not a goer!
The coach was our last shot, easy! They sell you a bike bag for €10 and it goes in the hold. Despite a few good views of eagles (short toed was the only one I could identify) the coach ride was a durge, it took 10hr30mins!! I arrived in Santander with fat feet from not moving enough, wierd podgy, fluid filled feet, John had fat ankles, my feet went back to normal fairly quickly but johns ankles hung about a bit so I christened them his 'Fankles'.
Worthy of note was a pharmacy sign I glimpsed at whilst the bus was stopping in a town the temperature read 42 degrees, maybe this leg of the ride would have killed us anyway!
Hotel in Santander then some shopping on Wednesday as we waited for our evenig departure. Getting on the ferry was a dodle compared to the lunatic organisation at Livorno.
The boat is pretty luxurious, tiny cabin but lots to do. We had a large cocktail last night before bed which was a mistake as I didn't sleep a jot, went for a walk around the deck at 4am it was eerie.
Have seen gannets, shearwaters and skuas this morning (those are birds) and a massive pod of dolphins, some earnest twitchy types with better bins than I, say they saw Orca earlier (that's killer whales but earnest twitchy types don't like to call them that as they are actually members of the dolphin family!) anyway I was very jealous indeed!
Much love, I look forward to seeing my mother this evening and my lovely wife tomorrow.
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