Santilla del Mar/Santander

Yesterday I joined the Mary Washington students on their excursion. There were some open seats, so I asked their professor if I could join them. It was only 12 euros to go! We went to three different places during the trip. The first place we stopped at was the Neo Cave and Exhibition Center. The cave was discovered in 1879 by Marcelino Sanz de Sautuola and his daughter Maria, and it was declared by the UNESCO culturual heritage site. The cave, about 300 meters long, has 150 engraved figures made by the Palaeolithic man and great polychromatic paintings (based on natural pigments), especially the ones with bisons and wild boars. We were able to tour the musuem about the cave as well as a replica of the cave. The cave was closed in the 1980s to tourists because the amount of people touring the cave caused the temperature to increase in the cave and destroy the paintings. My host mom toured the cave before it closed!

After the visit to the cave, we went to Santillana del Mar. This town is an "alive museum" of a medieval village developed around the "Santa Juliana" collegiate church, although most of the houses were built between the XIV and XVII century. The whole Santillana can only be visited on foot.

The last place we visited was Playa del Sardinero in Santander. It was beautiful!!