Travel guide of the Spanish city of Santillana del Mar with all the basics and essentials.
Santillana del Mar is a municipality and town in Cantabria (Spain), it is also popularly called by the title of town of the three lies, since it is neither holy, nor flat, nor has a sea but this refers to the town not to the municipality which does have a coastline.
With a population of close to four thousand inhabitants, it becomes a gentle and hospitable town, which indicates to the stranger its main tourist attraction that is in the vicinity of the municipality, there is the Altamira cave considered the Sistine Chapel of Quaternary art, declared and protected as a World Heritage Site.
It is the tourist gateway to Cantabria, being one of the most visited municipalities and an essential destination for tourists who travel to the region. Tourism has become the economic engine of the town, where a large number of hotels, rural accommodation and artisan shops that offer typical products of the region and their manufacture have been developed; However, another of the important activities that its inhabitants engage in is agricultural activity, which allows them to meet the demand for vegetables and legumes that are consumed in the region.
In July 2013, Santillana del Mar managed to be part of The Most Beautiful Villages in Spain. Making it one of the most attractive towns for tourism. As you can see, my traveling friend, in the little that we have been able to know between the lines, of this beautiful town, it can give us enormous satisfaction when making a visit.
Among other tourist attractions Santillana del Mar offers us, a Zoo and Botanical Garden of important dimensions, which is characterized by housing the majority of the Iberian fauna, among the most prominent we can find the insectary, colonized in its entirety by very large butterflies. diverse characteristics and origins, once we have visited these places, the next suggested destination is the museums, some of which we can visit are that of Jesús Otero, the Diocesan Regina Coeli and that of the Inquisition.
The cobbled roads, through the years that have been restored, were converted into a market for shops, which are dedicated to the sale of typical Cantabrian products, several of these are food, for example, the most important and that You should not stop trying are the anchovies from Santoña, the cecina from deer and the sobao pasiego, so your exquisite palate will be satisfied, but only there is no gastronomic offer in these places, they also sell handcrafted products, in which sculptures of characters from Cantabrian mythology predominate.
You cannot miss the Altamira caves, this cave you can find the most famous prehistoric paintings in the world. The discovery of these caves dates back to the end of the 14.000th century, causing a huge controversy and subsequent shock among the scientific community of the time, initially incredulous to admit the age of the paintings that lay on their walls close to 1.868 years . This formation was found by chance in the year 1.879 by Modesto Cubillas, however the “room of polychromes”, would be discovered in XNUMX, during a visit produced by Sanz de Sautuola with his daughter María.
When we go there we can make a little visit and see how one of the most important monuments of our country is conserved and that is ultimately something that we should see at least once.
Santillana del Mar not only has caves as a tourist attraction, which are no longer so easy to access today; Another great site is the town of the Monastery of Santa Juliana, where it was characterized by great economic splendor in the XNUMXth and XNUMXth centuries, with the beautiful cloister, large houses and palaces that make up this town evidenced from this time.
There we can locate the current headquarters of the Santillana Foundation, these buildings are the Merino and Don Borja towers that are among the oldest civil constructions, so it is essential to plan a walking tour of this cobbled town to be able to admire it throughout its fullness and splendor the beauty of its streets and medieval buildings. Once in this place we will see in front of majestic buildings such as the houses of the Eagle and the Parra (where the Regional Government has installed an exhibition room), the palace and the tower of Velarde, the house of Leonor de la Vega, the palaces of Barreda, Tagle and Villa and a very long etcetera that it would be too extensive to list.
But nature has not been left behind, the municipality has a great wealth in this regard, it enjoys an imposing coastline that invites activity such as fishing and recreational recreation on its quiet beaches of Santa Justa and Ubiarco, offering us different activities of nature Aquatic to enjoy together with our families, being a destination desired by any kind of tourist, thanks to its strong cultural and recreational makeup that it offers throughout the year.
Santillana de Mar, in short, is one of the most attractive points in Cantabria and an essential place to be visited by tourists and we cannot forget in addition to the history that each of its corners contains and that they make when walking through its streets we are impregnated with the aroma of centuries of history, because it is not for less, since over time, Santillana del Mar has become one of the tourist destinations most chosen by those who prefer to spend a few quiet days, away from the hustle and bustle of big cities.
For all that we have said and for the small journey we have made, it is worth going a few days and check everything with our own eyes, so you can discover that we are not lying and that everything is true.
Do not think twice and take a walk around its beaches, take advantage of its gastronomy and spend unforgettable days.
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