August 21, 2013

Last night’s hotel was perfect to celebrate our anniversary and we took full advantage of it by checking out as late as possible. Today’s challenge was to find accommodations more typical to our price range.

After checking the list of hotels provided by the tourist office, we found a pension near a beach that we heard was pretty nice. The room was about 1/3 the cost of surrounding hotels so we set our expectations accordingly. After about a 15 minute ride on a city bus, we arrived at Playa de El Sardinero. The beach was packed with people but it was really a stunning setting. The beach was about 1.5 km long set between rock peninsulas that jutted into the Atlantic Ocean. After dropping off our bags and picking our room, we headed back to the beach. The rest of the afternoon was spent walking the beach, having lunch and laying on the sand. I may have snuck in a little siesta as well.

We stayed on the beach until 7 pm and then went back to our room to get changed and enjoy the cocktail hour on the pension’s front patio. it was around 9 pm when we left the pension and grabbed some nondescript food down the street. After that we headed over to the sports stadium to check out a festival that we had heard about.

It turned out to be food and music festival with offerings from around the world. We were really bummed we had already eaten dinner but we enjoyed the dance music and some libations at the Mexico booth. It was after midnight when we snuck into the pension quietly as possible.