Day 2 - Altamira

 Woken bright and early by the towns gardening team strimming the verges and tidying the carpark for the summer season to start on Saturday. Had been a good night with no noise and despite the cold we’d stayed pretty warm though there was a grumble of ‘freezing’ beside me when I woke. 

After moving the van to shift away from the strimming team we had a quick breakfast and we headed to Altamira. We’d not bought online tickets so were crossing fingers for ‘on the day’ entry. A short but pretty drive took us to the visitor centre where we had no difficulty getting a ticket with timed entry to the ‘new caves’ (€3 each)

The museum itself is pretty impressive but we started with our cave entry. Much better than expected, this is a reproduction of the genuine cave next door ( now closed to prevent damage from visitors) and it is spectacularly good at recreating the entire setting in resin , it’s necessary to remind yourself that the paintings aren’t real despite the shiny walkways and information boards. 


The rest of the centre houses a huge amount of information on evolution , archaeological excavations and prehistoric art. Much of which is described in English as well as in Spanish. 

There’s so much to read that we broke off after a couple of hours to lunch in the van ( the Spanish don’t seem to understand the concept of museum tea shops!) and walk around the exterior of the building to see to entry to the original cave and enjoy some sunshine. Then back in for the last couple of rooms and a trip to the gift shop to get a guide book and a key ring that can be adapted as a souvenir Christmas decoration. 

It was later in the day than we’d expected to finish so we decided to just go back to Santillana for the night. The space we’d chosen last night was empty again so we parked up and headed into town for a quick visit to the museum before it closed. 

This was a beautiful building , part art gallery, part local ethnological collection and didn’t take long to look at but was worth it to experience the buildings interior (free entry).

Then back to the van for a curry before the rain set it so we spent the rest of the evening constructing a bit of a plan for the next few days. As weather seems better in the north, we are going to stay up here and hopefully get to the picos tomorrow but it depends how much we wander on the way !

Overnight: Santillana del Mare (as yesterday) 

Cumulative mileage: 129.4 (not far today!) 

Spending: Altamira entry tickets  £5.08,  Key ring and guide book £8.26


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