Santillana del Mar trip with Rita

Rita and I drove out to Santillana del Mar one day (I don't really know which day). On all of our trips before Randy joined us, we took Rita's little red car. It wasn't fancy but we loved it; it got us everywhere we wanted to go.

It's a fair drive out there, and along the way we passed a few small towns, but mostly rural scenes that looked to me to be as old as Spain itself. I didn't see any tractors here.

Santillana del Mar is an old, small town, unchanged for several hundred years. It's a protected historic site, so residents cannot build or change structures in the town, but there is a sub-division outside with newer houses. Rita told me that Santillana del Mar is called the "Town of Three Lies" because it's not associated with a saint (santo), it's not flat (llama) and it's not by the sea (mar). 

We stayed in the Paradore de Santillana Gil Blas. Paradors are a series of government-organized hotels, designed and located specifically to promote tourism. They are usually in a historic building; this one was charming.

The town had a lovely old cathedral, not fancy outside but very impressive, and inside the alter has massive amounts of gold and silver leaf on the decorations. The interior walls and tall columns are the same bare stone as the outside, and I love it that way. Rita and I went in once for Mass. 

On the central plaza which every Spanish town has, sits the Palacio de Velarde. It isn't really a palace, it's a grand home built in the 16th century by the wealthy Velarde family.  

I appreciated the small, humble scenes of life. Nothing has changed here for centuries, and the lack of people gives it an odd air, as if everyone had just left a few minutes ago. 

Nearby are the famous Altamira Caves. I really, really wanted to see these but we couldn’t get in. Viewing is by reservation only, and they were booked at least one year ahead. The parking lot, which over looks the caves, was a close as I got. 

But at least the lobby ceiling was painted with a very faithful copy of the caves, and there was a film about the discovery of the caves and their paintings.