Into Cantabria

We took the train to Portugalete to avoid the choking factory sections of Bilbao.  So at 8:00 the morning we emerge from under ground near the famous moving bridge over the Nevron River there.  We start the steep descent to the river when a Swiss couple we have seen before on Camino tell us the path is up.  Luckily there are large public escalators in Portugalete and we don't have to be embarrassed by Swiss leg power so early in the day.  Many cities do no seem to encourage the painting of yellow guide arrows all over. So we depend, as we so often do, on Spain's good citizens to recognize that when middle aged folk with back packs, boots, and walking poles start turning circles and squinting in the middle of their cities, well they are pereginos looking for the Camino.  We get directed on our way and begin leaving the land of the Basque and crossing into Cantabria on the sea.
It is warm but we are accompanied by dozens and dozens of Spaniards at their morning exercises and dog walking.  The air gets a bit cooler and breezier as we near the sea.  We expect to walk to a town called Moines about 16K along and there are no big hills to climb--superb, smashing, vunderbar. 
I can't really see the pictures I take all that well, but I hope they capture a bit of the majesty.  Pete and I were breaking into song, and slowing down to take photo after photo.  What a day!  We actually felt great after our day of rest (and a bit of pack lightening--hon, I threw out the razor, I will be grizzled and gray in Santiago). 
In our destination city at about 1:30 we first over shot the turn by about 1 K.  Then we turned and walked into the village to find that the owners of the pension had taken holiday, so no rest for the weary.  We set our sights on Castro Urdailes about 10K further on down the coast.  We left the Camino a bit to follow the road and got lost at the north end of town.  Our guidebook assured us there was an albergue to sleep in, but we had no idea where (and Castro Urdailes is no village).  Following our usual practice we approached folk with the book open to the address and say, "No hablo espanol.  Habla ingles?  Donde esta...."  point point point.  As we were asking a young, harried mother with a stroller and two other little ones, a 20 something woman enters the scene and took over the attempted conversation.   Eventually she voluntered to walk us across town to the albergue (40 minutes!).  We called her Maria the angel.  As she left us, we once again noted that whever we have needed food, water, directions, a bit of inquiry produces an abundance of the desired good.  This adventure in Spain is everything I dreamed it would be and more: beauty everywhere, especially where it counted for us the most--in the heart of a young  woman who saw some pilgrims who had lost their way in Cantabria and remembered she too had been a stranger once.