Noja, Spain

At the beginning of June we traveled to the Cantabria province for a couple of a days.

We love Cantabria for its lush countryside, majestic rolling hills, mysterious mountains, and gorgeous beaches.



It's a shame it is most often rainy and/or foggy there.

We rented this conveniently located apartment across from the Ris Beach in Noja, Spain.

We enjoyed the location and all the open space inside the apartment but the kids above all appreciated....

this indoor pool.  We've never stayed in a hotel with a pool since living in Spain.  They are rare here and this one not only had this "jacuzzi" it also had a year round heated outside pool.  Kids are only allowed in this until 3 therefore this is where we spent each morning.

Coincidentally the first full day was sunny and warm.  

This video shows how Kaiya, Morgan and Kamree normally choose to entertain themselves at the beach.  Mason is not shown here because he is behind me playing in the sand as usual. 





Kaiya was walking along the waters edge when she got caught off guard by the enormous waves.

This alluring beach had much to explore, including the old rock wall on the right and directly behind Kamree was a building atop the hill.  Fortunately the golden sand wasn't too soft to walk/run around on.

Brent is pointing out that same hill with the small old building. This shows how high the tide rose after only a few hours. 

After spending a few hours in the water Kaiya, Morgan and I were ready to explore the hill above the beach.

We had a fantastic view of the Ris beach where we had been minutes before.

As most hilltops in Spain we discovered some old ruins.

Overlooking the other side, is  the village "Isla" that we explored the next day.

Back to our beach.

Morgan couldn't get enough of the sand.

He did this over and over.

 

That evening we went into town for dinner and found a seaside sandwich bar which is about all you can find serving food before 9 pm.  In Spain, anything served with a hamburger bun is called a hamburger with or without hamburger.  It is a chicken hamburger not a chicken sandwich. Anything with sandwich bread is a "sanwhich" and anything with a baquette is a bocadillo which means sandwich.  In the beginning this was very confusing for us. 

While waiting for dinner at this seaside cafe I took this picture of the Trengandin Beach at the center of town which looked nothing like it had earlier in the day (as shown in the following picture). 

This was the zoomed in picture I had taken in the morning.  This must be why no one was surfing at this beach.

After dinner we went for a short drive around town and along this non-short wall in Noja.  It went forever!  There must be something worthy behind it.  

This is called the "Old Roman Bridge" but it was not roman built since it was built several hundred years after the Romans in the early 1600s. 

After a day of oodles of swimming and the short drive we explored a bit more of the Ris beach. 

Here is Morgan right before he badly scraped up his way upper thigh landing on a rock hidden just below the soft sandy surface.

A view of Brent enjoying the view!

 

Day 2

The 2nd day was cold and drizzly all day so we spent the morning swimming in the indoor pool until lunch time and then we drove into town for some nasty pizza around 3pm.  We were so desperately hungry that not a scrap was left behind. 

 

Isla, Spain

After lunch we explored the next town over appropriately named  Isla (Island).

     

The kids chased after some little black crabs, unfortunately Morgan was too scaredy cat to grab one.

This lovely place was captivating.

The destination at the end of this boardwalk was more impressive than we expected. 

The clear turquoise water was enticing.

As usual, we couldn't resist exploring everything even though it was challenging to maneuver across the sharp uneven rock.

Brent took this, can you find the rest of us?

Brent also took this amazing shot of this small, bird claimed isle.  

Morgan pushing it as usual and yes he inevitably climbed to that peak on the right.

And another.

 This crazy wildflower's petals were folded back to the stem.

After Isla, Brent, Kaiya and Morgan braved up and boogie boarded one last time before we headed home the next morning. 

Santander

Last day: swimming in the jacuzzi until we had to check out at 10:30, shopping at Primark and then the peninsula at Santander.  While driving into Santander we saw exotic car after exotic car. 

This is the beach at the beginning of the walk along the peninsula.  

Santander is the captital city of Cantabria.

The tree trunks in Spain are usually more interesting than the foliage. 

This wasn't the first time we've seen camouflaged tree trunks.

Kamree has always had a fascination with flowers of any kind. These had interesting tube shaped petals.

Morgan wasn't happy after he climbed the fence past the sign that I'm sure said "Do not cross, Dangerous?" etc. and we wouldn't allow him to go exploring any farther.  We are so mean.

It was a pleasant surprise to find penguins, seals and sea lions along this peninsula, although we would have preferred to have seen them in their natural habitats. 

One of the many seals.

The sea lions were caged where there once were polar bears. 

It was all so beautiful.

I was just getting ready to take a cool picture of all these pigeons sitting upon a fence when one of the kids scared them off and provided this instead. 

This is the 100 year old Palacio de la Magdalena which is fairly new comparatively.  It was built for the royal family but it is now used by the city.  This was built at the end of the peninsula.

And as always we encountered fog as we drove through the Picos de Europa on our way home.

Spring Mix

Our town hosted a soccer tournament with some of the best teams in the country, which did not include Morgan's team. Fortunately for his team, because we were hosting they were able to play in the tournament.  His team didn't care that they were guaranteed to lose.  They were ecstatic to play against players eyed to eventually play for some of the professional teams.  

 

Parque Capricho

Our friends Paul, Kayley and Glenn met us at these lovely gardens one Saturday.

We hadn't heard about these gardens until our friends suggested them.

We spent a couple of hours here exploring these beautiful gardens, old ruins, taking pictures, playing games etc. 

There were mazes to look at, but not to walk through which really perturbed the kids. 

                                                                                                               

There was water over the bridge, 
in order to walk under the water.

There were 
captivating flowers!

This is an old farmhouse from the 1700s.

And as always something to climb!

There were all kinds 
of tree trunks!

 

Our Bilingual School

This sign is placed in the hallway at our school and it speaks for itself.

 

Madrid

Kaiya and I met up in Madrid with my friend Andrea from the school (she is from Texas).  This is an Egyptian temple that was re-located here near the Royal Palace.

Teleferico

We later went on a short cable car ride on the west side of Madrid.

The view was beautiful with the exception of the graffiti along the train tracks, although graffiti is frequently a part of the scenery in Spain.

The Royal Palace and the Almudena Cathedral are seen here in the background.

On the other end of the cable car ride was a restaurant, lookout, gift store and these doors to the "toilets".  I doubt there are many people mistakenly wandering into the wrong restrooms here.  I'm sure this guy wasn't delighted to be photographed at this time.

Real Madrid

Finally someone in our family had the opportunity to attend a Real Madrid "futbol" game.  Brent's co-worker had an extra ticket and invited him along.   Great seats, right?

 Grandma and Grandpa Huber

Brent's parents came for a visit in May spending Grandma's birthday and Mother's day with us. 

On the second day of their visit, Brent and Kamree took them to Segovia.  Kamree had a scheduled field-trip with her class on this day to a different castle, but we knew she would have more fun with Grandma and Grandpa.

They stopped at the Palacio Real de la Granja (Royal Palace of the Farm) on their way back.

 

A couple of days later, on my day off,  I took Brent's parents to El Castillo de Manzaneres el Real. 

On our way back we briefly stopped to enjoy the peaceful view of Buitrago.

That evening we took them to dinner and flamenco for Grandma's birthday.

Kamree finally learned this part of the silks routine and was so proud of herself.

.

We surprisingly found maple syrup in our local grocery store.  It was hiding in the diet section and priced at 7 Euros for a teeny tiny bottle. We are not that desperate yet.