Walked through Santander today, just taking it all in before we get up early to start the Camino.

Went to the Palacio del Magdalena, where Grand Hotel is filmed (or at least the outside scenes), then wandered through town in search of a place to get our camino ‘passports’, the credencials, where our hosts will give us a stamp each day. Suddenly the walk feels REAL!!

Wandering about the city, Lisa spotted a crowd, and aptly suggested we check it out. How amazing a find: a group of street performers, old and young, creating four totem-like arrangements of items, and singing to the crowd of spectators of wolves.

Before long, they started to assemble the parts, into four, life-sized puppets, hoisted aloft by one carrier and controlled by two or three puppeteers each. From there, they howled and danced and started a procession, followed by the crowd, through town. We peeled off, marveling at what we’d just seen.