Greetings!
Today John Tonner and I had a few hours to kill in the morning, before we met up with the Trek Travel crew and other cyclists. We strolled along the shoreline on Santander's Strand, took some photos, and then found a little breakfast spot to grab a bite and have some strong Spanish coffee. We enjoyed a traditional breakfast of fresh bread, ham and cheese. Our waitress was a cheerful conversationalist from Camaguey, Cuba, who'd been living in Spain for ten years. We asked her if she'd been to the States and she said no, and that she'd love to visit New York and Las Vegas!
It was time to hike over to the train station and meet the crew. We hauled our gear through a very busy 8-10 city blocks in downtown Santander. It was the middle of regular business day, and there were a great many people on the street. A very cosmopolitan place, with many upscale shops and restaurants. Felt a little like Michigan Ave. in downtown Chicago.
John & I met the others at train station and we all piled into two vans and drove about 25 miles to the
gorgeous Hotel Casona Palacio Los Caballeros in the medieval town of Santillana Del Mar, about 2 km from the ocean.
After checking in, we met for a session of very professional bike-fitting with the good folks from Trek Travel. John & I stepped into a pair of carbon-fiber Trek Madone bicycles and immediately felt like we could bike 10mph faster :-)
Within the hour, we we enjoying our first 25-mile "warmup ride" on a nice hot afternoon. Our guides gave us two challenging hills to climb on our very first day, that weren't a helluva lot less challenging than the most challenging hills in all of Wisconsin, part of the Horribly Hilly Hundreds! And this was just the warmup ride :-)The scenery was fantastic, and we all tumbled back to our hotel a short while later to shower up and enjoy a nice social with the rest of the group.
We all headed into town an hour or so later for a lovely dinner at the Altamira Hotel & Restaurant.
Off to bed early because the real treat is tomorrow: we get to watch Stage 12 of the Vuelta Ciclista D'Espagne from inside the Astana Team car!
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