Day 88: Santillana del Mar, Spain

Our journey today took us from the province of Asturias (the town of Cangas de Onis) to the province of Cantabria (the town of Santillana del Mar), further east along the northern coast of Spain. Here is some of the countryside we saw on our drive (which took about an hour and a half).




We arrived at our last Parador of the trip, located in the very picturesque village of Santillana del Mar right on the main square. Here is the front of the Parador:




This is one of the buildings that faces onto the square. Santillana del Mar is filled with old mansions that are now stores and restaurants - many with gorgeous flowers on the balconies and in the windows.




We had lunch on the Parador terrace which is bordered on one side by enormous white hydrangeas (and no, I'm still not tired of them).




In the late afternoon, we suddenly noticed that the sun had come out for the first time in days so we quickly raced to the beach in Santander, which is about 20 minutes away. Sien and I were so happy to have some sun time that we didn't move from our towels until the clouds had completely rolled back in and there was no further chance of a few rays. This is the view from our beach towels - which doesn't give much of a sense of what the beach looked like but I was so focused on the fact the sun was finally out that I took zero pictures.




Back in Santillana del Mar, we explored the town with Frank as our trusty tour guide and got to see more of the beautiful family mansions and stone buildings and archways.




Here I am in front of the church with Sien and Dave:








It started to rain, so we ducked into a restaurant with a covered area and then finished the day with a drink at the local bar right next to the Parador:




Having a few hours of sunshine made our day. Hopefully that wasn't the last of it for the week! Northern Spain is beautiful and I highly recommend it but I DO miss the weather of Southern Spain!

ILM