Beautiful places of Barcelona and Catalonia: SPAIN - CANTABRIA: SANTANDER, COMILLAS AND SANTILLANA DEL MAR

Cantabria was the first stage of our trip, where we spent two days. The second one was the Basque Country, where we visited Bilbo (Bilbao) and Donostia (San Sebastián). In Cantabria we visited Santander and the lovely villages of Comillas and Santillana del Mar.

Saturday, 25th july 2009

Santander

This picture of fishing boats in the Puerto Chico reminds us that, originally, Santander was mainly a fishing town

Walking along the seafront under a lovely day we reached the Magdalena beach. Santander is completelly opened to the sea, with impeccable gardens and seafronts, a perfect places to walk

From Magdalena peninsula the view of Sardinero beach and the Santander coast is really beautiful. This peninsula is one of the more charming places of Santander and, of coure, one of the places I liked the most

Now two seals also, but with the Magdalena peninsula in the background. We spent a really good time walking around in this place

The Magdalena Palace is a really beautiful building and, thanks to its privileged location, the views of Cantabric sea are magnificent. Nowadays this building is Menéndez Pelayo University headquarters and it has been a summer residence of the spanish monarchy

A great view of Santander, taken from Piquio gardens, of Sardinero beach with the Magdalena peninsula in the background

Piquio gardens, located between the two Sardinero beach, were an ideal place to eat a wonderful Regma ice-cream before coming back

Here we have already came back to Pereda gardens, where there were some funny sculptures

The Santander Cathedral at night. Before we had visited the cloister, which is opened to visitors

Sunday, 26th july 2009

Comillas and Santillana del Mar

We went from Santander to Comillas by coach. The Santander bus station is big and pretty functional because most of trips in Cantabria are by coach. Sceneries like this one are very usual in Cantabria

Comillas is 40km away from Santander. For almost one hour we were sitting enjoying landscapes like this one

Comillas

Here, in front of this modernist white fountain built by Lluis Doménech i Muntaner, we started our flying visit in Comillas. Unfortunately we only could spend less than three hours in this lovely small town full of modernist monuments because of coach timetables. So we had to hurry up :)