Relaxing in Santillana del Mar

The weekend after Paris we had a class trip to a town in northern Spain called Santillana del Mar.

 This was the view from our hotel.  It was a lovely relaxing place and so much greener than the rest of Spain.  It is in northern Spain and also has a more french style of architecture.

A Palace in a town nearby.

The first day was spent wandering town, but as it was a small place and siesta time there wasn't much to see.  We spend the evening listening to presentations because this weekend was class time too, and then everyone turned in for the night.

The next morning we were off to visit the Cave of Altamira.  This cave was discovered in the 1800's and the cave's paintings were discovered a few years after.  They are covering part of the cave ceiling and are in the shapes of deer, buffalo, and horses.  Unfortunately the ACTUAL cave is closed off to the public because carbon dioxide is very damaging to the paintings so we went into a replica.  They have the cave exactly replicated down to the hand painted figures.  The only difference is that the painted section of the cave is only a meter high but they have made it much higher in the replica so that people can go underneath them without touching them.

After the caves we grabbed lunch and then headed down for a beach afternoon.  It was in the low 80s so it was perfect lounging weather.

We hung out for over three hours and laughed with our Professor about how this is the way class always needed to be.  We left the beach sadly and went home for the evening.

On our last day we visiting an old church which is one of the stops on the Camino de Santiago, a pilgrimage route through northern Spain.

After wandering the church for a while we jumped back on our bus for the trip home.  It was a nice weekend in the lush north.