The most beautiful spots in Cantabria...Puente Viesgo, Santillana del Mar y Comillas

*Forgive me for taking so long to write about this trip.

We're standing in front of the beach, but you can't see it! Me, Pilar, Emily, Andrea and Corie.

Saturday the 15th of Nov. my ISA group had a one day excursion to three different, but all spectacular cities within Cantabria. Cantabria is one of the 17 comunidades autonomias (provinces) of Spain. Cantabria is the autonomia that I live in, in Santander. Cantabria and most of northern Spain is known for its beautiful beaches, which I must say are amazingly blue and clear. So on this excursion I was able to learn and see more of Cantabria, its history, and bella cities.

Puente Viesgo (puente=bridge)
This city is very historical because it is the city that has the oldest cave paintings in Spain. The caves of Altamira are beautiful and very colorful. When we went into the caves we had to go very deep into the ground to see the cave paintings. We were told that there are other caves in northern Spain that also were lived in by prehistoric people that have distinct paintings from the ones in Altamira. Our guide told us that it is possible that the paintings we saw in the caves represent the family "coat of arms" or their symbol. It was amazing to have had this experience to see real cave paintings. Most of them were "mano en negativo" which means hand in negative. Prehistoric people would use crushed red stone to make a negative print of their hand. We also saw many paintings of deer as well as of bison and bulls. It was fascinating. Unfortunately, we were not able to take pictures inside the cave, but it was definitely an experience. Just a fun fact: the city of Puente Viesgo is popular with the fútbol players. Every weekend before a game of the Spanish National team, the whole team goes to the famous spa in this city...hmmmmm. :)

Puente Viesgo...it was raining all morning, but I still took a decent picture...I think.

Santillana del Mar
I have a new favorite city(well as many of you know I have many favorite things in Spain). Santillana is another amazing city in Spain. It is a medieval town from the 1400´s and the city hasn´t changed since then, literally. There are no modern buildings or stores, it still has old bars, small shops, etc. The city was a perfect example of a medieval town. One of my favorite things about Spain (which is true for all of Europe) is all the history that is still here and how you can see it within the buildings and cities you visit. Anyway, the church that is in Santillana, La iglesia de Santa Juana, is one of the stops along the Camino de Santiago (the pilgrimage trail of Santiago that passes through northern Spain). The church was small and humble, but the cloister was large and very green. After the visit to the church, Carmen (our wonderfully incredible director) had a surprise for us. We got to eat some authentic/traditional Cantabrian desserts: sobao and quesada. It is hard to explain what these desserts are like, but the sobao has a similar texture and taste as pound cake, but it is in the form of a thin rectangle and is not as sweet. Quesada has a circular shape and comes in all sizes. It is a type of custard dessert and very good. We only had a little bit of free time in Santillana so Emily and I just walked around and went into some of the small shops there. After a few hours in Santillana we headed to Comillas.
A medieval building that is now a hostel. :)







One of the many medieval streets we walked down.
Here's a view from Santillana. It is beautiful.
The church of Santa Juana, it is roman architecture.

View of the cloister. The flowers on the walls are so colorful!
A different view of the cloister. I had a lot of fun experimenting with my camera here.
In the middle of one of the streets there was a place where you can tie up your horse and they can drink water out of the trough. As you can see there are no horses.

Comillas
Comillas is more of a beach town than a historic town, but it does still have its history. The town was absolutely beautiful this weekend...I fell in love with it. Everywhere we walked the leaves would be all over the ground and the leaves that were still on the branches were of all shades of fall colors (my favorite time of the year). It was enchanting! Carmen took us on a mini tour to visit some historical places in Comillas. This town's most historic figure is a Marques; I'm sorry but I have completely forgotten his name. Anyway, this Marques lived in Comillas most of his life. He was born into a low-middle class family and when he was older he ended up having a business in transportation by sea which helped him gain prestige as well as a lot of money. He built a large mansion on top of a hill in Comillas for him, his wife and four children to live. Next to the mansion is a small church where the family attended. Eventually, the Marques had a mistress (which his wife knew about and so did everyone else in the town). To show his love and devotion to his mistress, the Marques asked Gaudi to build a home near where the mansion is. The home that Gaudi built is very much his style and magnificent as usual. The house was lived in by the mistress and at times by the Marques as well. Now if you were to walk from the mansion to the mistress' house it would be about a 2 minute walk. They were very close together which is what shocked me because of the time period when it happened (1800's).
View of part of the town of Comillas. In the background of the picture you can see the University that is named after the Marques.
The Marques' mansion.

Behind the house there is a bridge that leads from the back door into some gardens and a fountain. In front of the fountain there is a statue of Gaudi, sitting on a bench, contemplating. It is a very cool place. We had free time so I went walking around the city with a few other girls in my group and we eventually walked up a hill that overlooked one of Comillas gorgeous beaches. Enjoy the pictures!

View of the Marques' home with the church in the background.

Sheila, Megan and I standing in front of the house that Gaudi built. It is also called La casa de girasoles (The house of sunflowers) because the exterior is covered in sunflowers.

The chimney of the house Gaudi built.
I have the most wonderful people in my ISA group! Top: Rachel, Michael, Bottom: Emily, Sheila, Gaudi, Naomi & I.
The main plaza in Comillas. There was a beautiful golden retriever puppy running around.
I hope you will be able to see this picture clearly because it was one of my favorite discoveries. The signs are very medieval and each has one of the most religious cities written on them and how many km away the city is from Comillas. The top one is Rome, the second Jerusalem, the third Santiago de Compostela (the pilgrimage of Santiago) and the last Santo Toribio. Que guay!

Hope you enjoyed! Besos, Celeste