Last days at Laredo

The marina at Laredo is a strange place, the pontoons are state of the art ( except for a noticeable lack of safety ladders in case of a fall in ) however there are no facilities to speak of just two portaloos that are inaccessible outside working hours, so no toilets, no showers, no staff on duty, no shop or chandlers on site and a suspicious lack of boats. We found out why when we went to pay and they relieved us of €129 for three days stay. Not all yachtsmen are rich and even the ones that are don't like being ripped off by paying full whack for a half finished project. Needless to say if we return to Laredo we will anchor in the Ria.

However Laredo itself we loved. A surprising and interesting town. The beach is fantastic.

I promised Lynne to show her the view from the top of the hill, the Atalaya. We had been into the old town the previous evening watching England achieve a lacklustre draw.

The following day I decided to try and do something about the growth on the bottom of the boat and so found myself swimming and scrubbing the waterline free of green slime and weed. We will need to have the boat hauled soon if we can't find somewhere we can dry out.

That evening fulfilling my promise regarding the view from Atalaya we followed routa 1 which climbed up towards the 13th century church, which is seemingly essential for towns on this coast.

This continues along a steep flower lined path with many steps towards some high altitude allotments ( I kid you not )

The views in every direction are superb.

As a this was our last night we decended once again at sunset into the old town.

We had a last look around, this whole part of town feels like you have slipped into medieval times gone by.

Distracted by the many interesting things to be found we tried to concentrate on finding another friendly bar in a lovely square where we could catch Spain crashing to defeat by Croatia while nursing a red wine. We found one by following the sounds of the bells.

This particular bar also turned out to be an art gallery, now I ask you where could you watch the footy in an art gallery while drinking alchohol on a balmy summer evening, well Laredo that's where!

The following morning we would leave for Santander.