I haven't decided to take this holiday until the last minutes but I have read some info about this area before. I like that kind of reading as you might know :-P To those who do not know Santander, it is one of the big cities in Cantabria region, a region in the north of Spain which famous of its spectacular coast line along the bay of Biscay. This area, I learned from several sources, is quite different from the other areas in Spain with its mountainous landscape. It's kind of coasts and mountains in the same area region.
I arrived in Santander quite late around 9pm, I have booked a pension close to the train station in Santander and I was so happy that I followed my intuition to buy a Spanish dictionary at the airport. The lady who welcomed me at the pension could not speak English at all, she knew that I could not speak Spanish (she asked me when I just arrived) but she continued to speak Spanish to me :-P I haven't been in Spain for quite some time (last time was my Segovia-Madrid-Seville-Granada-Algeciras-Barcelona trip in Dec 2005-Jan 2006...gosh 3 years ago...did not realize that) I forgot most of my basic Spanish for survival sentences :-P That lady tried to tell me something but I had no clue at all what she wanted to say and after saw my blank face she decided to grab someone who can speak English (and Spanish) as a translator. It turned out that she wanted to ask me whether I was happy with the room she showed me because otherwise there was a bigger room in different building :-P So much for my first day in Santander...lol..
The next day, I planned to go to Santillana del Mar and the famous Altamira cave. After checking the bus schedule, I found out that the earliest bus that day was at 11:30am (and I really had to be careful with the bus schedule since there are not so many departures...again it's quite an adventure to rely on public transportation). I spent some time to explore Santander that morning, strolling around its promenade and visiting its beautiful cathedral which really reminded me of a building in Oxford when you went inside.
I arrived in Santillana del Mar around noon and I knew from the tourist office in Santander that I had to go by foot or by taxi to reach Altamira cave museum from Santillana. At first I was really thinking about taking taxi (yeah it's holiday, wasn't it :-P) to save some time (quite a valid reason I would say..hehe) but I could not find a taxi there or actually I could not find the taxi driver (there was a taxi parked nearby the bus stop). So I had to walk...first of all I was not sure where to go, I had a map though but took some time to figure out the direction :-P The guy at the tourist office told me Altamira is about 2 kms from Santillana but he did not mention that it was uphill..it was noon, I had no lunch and it was quite warm (which was good but could be exhausting too). Thankfully the view was nice...though it was really only me who walked in the direction of the museum at that time :-P
Altamira museum was impressive...it made me think how's life 18000 years ago. It's a pity that we could not see the real caves but the museum was great (it was free of charge when I visited there). By the time I finished my museum tour I knew that I could not take the bus I planned to take to return to Santander. I arrived back in Santillana around 4pm and almost all the shops were closed for siesta, so I only walked around the scenic village. Santillana is beautiful village with its cobblestone street. I visited the roman Colegiata de Santa Juliana, a beautiful 12th century monastery which is the highlight of the village. I also visited the Museo Diocesano, another monastery at the other end of the village which I found had quite bizarre collection. First of all, I was the only visitor there and it was almost dark already when I was there and their cryptic collection (plus its two level wooden floor) did not really make me enjoying the moments I spent in that museum. But overall Santillana is pretty and I managed to catch the latest bus to Santander around 7pm...:-)
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