Time-travelling in Cantabria: from the stone age to Sartre by way of the ‘prettiest town in Spain’ | Spain holidays

Exploring the world west of Santander seems like being in a time machine. Within a half-hour drive of the Cantabrian capital on Spain’s inexperienced northern coast, you’ll be able to come across prehistoric cave artwork, a superbly preserved medieval city and a laid-back seashore resort.

When I started my weekend journey, it was raining, so my journey began within the Upper Paleolithic interval, on the Cave of Altamira, a Unesco world heritage website, staring up at a few of the oldest artwork on Earth. Well, virtually. The unique cave was largely closed to the general public many years in the past to guard the delicate work, so we had been contained in the Neocueva, a painstakingly reconstructed reproduction constructed beside it that prices simply €3 to enter.

Above me, bison and deer charged throughout the undulating rock ceiling, their our bodies rendered in wealthy ochres and charcoals. The prehistoric artists who painted them – hunter-gatherers who lived right here 13,000 to 36,000 years in the past – used the pure bumps and hollows of the cave to offer the animals a three-dimensional presence.

Altamira is commonly known as the Sistine Chapel of prehistoric artwork, and standing beneath these larger-than-expected painted animals, it’s simple to see why. Knowing the work had been replicas did little to blunt their affect.

The cave, whose most important entrance was sealed round 13,000 years in the past by rockfall, was found in 1868 by an area hunter and delivered to wider consideration by newbie archaeologist Marcelino Sanz de Sautuola. When, in 1880, Sautuola first introduced the work to the scientific neighborhood, many consultants dismissed them as fakes, unable to consider that prehistoric folks had been able to such refined artistry.

Walking by means of the museum, it’s placing how little humanity has modified. From handprints pressed in opposition to cave partitions to the selfies guests take beside them as we speak, the impulse is similar – to go away a hint.

Time was slipping away and my journey companions – my husband and our toddler son – had been starting to lose endurance with my archaeological enthusiasm. Hungry and nonetheless barely awestruck, we drove a couple of minutes down the highway to Santillana del Mar, the small medieval city that serves as Altamira’s gateway.

After a fast lunch, we discovered ourselves within the center ages. Santillana del Mar feels as if it’s come straight from the pages of a fairytale or, for the much less imaginative amongst us, Game of Thrones. Nobles’ homes, monastery buildings and towers line winding cobbled streets. At this level, the rain turned out to be one thing of a present, emptying the streets of vacationers.

Santillana traces its origins again to the ninth century, when monks carrying the relics of Saint Juliana settled right here and constructed a small hermitage. Around it grew a monastery, then properties, farms and workshops, forming a settlement that progressively advanced into Santillana. During the center ages, the city flourished as a part of the Astur-Leonese kingdom and have become an essential cease for pilgrims travelling alongside the Camino de Santiago.

The stream of travellers introduced commerce and wealth, therefore the grand stone homes and palaces. In 1209, King Alfonso VIII granted the city a constitution, the peak of its medieval prosperity.

The city sits near the beginning of the Camino Lebaniego, a much less well-known pilgrimage route that winds inland to the monastery of Santo Toribio de Liébana within the Picos de Europa mountains. Cantabria is the one area on the planet crossed by two Christian pilgrimage routes recognised as Unesco world heritage websites.

For a city deeply tied to Christian pilgrimage, it’s maybe sudden that Santillana can be linked to existential philosophy. In 1935, Jean-Paul Sartre visited the city with Simone de Beauvoir. A couple of years later, Santillana appeared in Nausea, Sartre’s first novel, because the narrator factors to {a photograph} and describes it as “the prettiest town in Spain” throughout a dialog in regards to the nature of journey.

“Getting on the wrong train. Stopping in an unknown city. Losing your briefcase, being arrested by mistake, spending the night in prison,” says the Self-Taught Man. “Monsieur, I believed the word adventure could be defined: an event out of the ordinary without being necessarily extraordinary.”

By that definition, my very own journey was nicely beneath means.

Travelling by means of medieval streets with an toddler just isn’t for the faint of coronary heart. Umbrella in a single hand and child service within the different, we trudged by means of the rain and our son fell asleep – ruining his nap schedule and our likelihood of a day relaxation.

Still, Santillana has a means of softening such moments. We ducked into the Casa Quevedo bakery, the place the identical household has served contemporary milk and truffles because the Nineteen Fifties. Inside the medieval constructing, a glass of milk felt like the right antidote to gray skies and parental exhaustion.

From Santillana, it’s a 10-minute drive to the seaside city of Suances, our last cease – and one other lurch of the time machine. Driving previous the primary a part of city and in the direction of the extra touristy space of the coast, condominium blocks and seaside lodges appeared in pastel shades. We checked into Costa Esmeralda Suites, a five-star lodge providing beneficiant low season reductions. On the skin, it resembles a standard mansion. Inside, nevertheless, the design seems like a time capsule of turn-of-the-millennium luxurious: pink carpets, a Ferrari-theme and massive whirlpools.

Just a brief stroll away lies Playa de la Concha, the place Atlantic waves roll in the direction of broad sandy dunes. The rain lastly eased as we arrived.

Near the port, eating places and cafes buzzed with exercise. “Other surf towns in the area are dead in winter,” one resident, Inma, informed me within the Marcelo Gourmet bar and restaurant. “But Suances is always full of life.”

Out of summer time, wetsuited surfers paddle out into the surf, typically with views of the snow-capped Picos de Europa mountains behind them. And the meals alone is motive sufficient to go to. At Bonito Verde, we ordered a plate of rabas (fried calamari, an area speciality), so contemporary and crisp they disappeared virtually immediately, together with scrumptious squid-ink croquetas. Curiosity additionally led us to Suka, an unassuming restaurant rumoured to serve a few of the greatest sushi in Cantabria. It was one other win.

For breakfast, locals pointed us to Castillo de Los Locos, which homes a restaurant perched dramatically above the cliffs of Playa de Los Locos, and the place the meals is nice and the views are unbelievable.

The final morning, I woke early and slipped out of the lodge room, leaving my sleeping household behind. Sunlight had lastly damaged by means of the clouds. I walked alongside the skinny peninsula that juts out between Playa de Los Locos and La Concha, listening to birdsong and watching waves crash in opposition to the cliffs. It’s solely a brief stroll past the Castillo de Los Locos, however it felt removed from civilisation.

Standing there, respiration the salt air and feeling the solar, I relaxed.

After singing the praises of Santillana, Sartre’s Nausea protagonist displays that journey isn’t one thing we will expertise whereas it’s occurring. Instead, he says, adventures are made after the very fact, by wanting again and turning experiences into tales. “But you have to choose,” he continues. “Live or tell.”