Things to see and do Côte nord Espagne

This is the finest example of mountain Romanesque art you can find. Do not miss this pure gem of mozarabic architecture (th-century). There have been traces since 930, but it is assumed that its construction is prior. The church was built in the same time as the church was built, and an olive tree planted according to villagers. At the entrance, the annulled arches recalling the architecture of mosques place, inside, the romanasque style of asturiennes churches (cradle vault), strongly impregnated with wisigothiques elements: carved capitals of grape leaves and heads of owls. The vertical slab in front of the altar is only a Celtic stele (dating from 2000 BC) engraved from a sun and decorated with a small polychrome figure painted in ash and blood. Behind the altar, the baroque altarpiece (th century) includes a surprising Virgin to the good milk of the th century.

This museum occupies the Casona de Carrejo, a th century mountain palace with a lovely porch. It offers a route through the various ecosystems of Cantabria through models, videos, but also fossils, minerals, dissected or a animals and plant species.

The cave had long been known to the villages surrounding the villages, but it was only in the early 1970 s that it was the subject of a excavations campaign that would update all the treasures it contains. With a rather modest size, she houses beautiful engravings and red paintings depicting deer, goats and bovines. Some of them are depicted in full strokes and others, as in the cave of Covalanas, dotted. The cave was also used as a residential space at the Solutréen.

The large central panel of the vestibule is certainly the most admirable in the cave. There is a bison and biches as well as a fish, which is more rare in the Cantabrian caves. Inside, you will also note an anthropomorphic silhouette, which is also very rare for this time. But it is mainly for the quantity of signs and symbols made at the point of the finger that the cave of Chufín owes its reputation. We find it in many places, without linking them, and without knowing its meaning. Codes, plans, first drafts of beliefs? Signs in prehistoric times do not have their Rosette stone yet and keep their mystery for them.

Less impressive than Covalanas by his paintings, Cullalvera is by its spectacular and immense mouth. Located in the heart of the village, the gallery measures no less than 12 km of length, half of which is right-line. As much as it is much easier to travel than in the small Covalanas gallery. Paintings were discovered in 1954. Open to the public in 2007, it offers plenty of space to accommodate scenographic spaces and also to the geological observation with beautiful concrete all along the walls. The paintings are concentrated in a sector hundreds of meters from the entrance, which, like Covalanas, assumes that they were in total darkness and visible only by artificial lighting. There are many signs and symbols, as well as horses and deer.

Dedicated to the patron saint of Cantabria, this church built in the seventeenth century has a simple and austere aspect. On the other hand, it retains a magnificent set of regimental styles of the eighteenth century - the most important of the entire region. The statue of the Virgin, probably dating from the beginning of the sixteenth century, lies at the level of the master altar.

The municipality developed in the Middle Ages along the royal road used by wool and wheat merchants to reach the ports, from which they sent their goods to the rest of Europe. It was the same path that Charles Quint borrowed in 1556 to join Yuste. Today there are several palaces and seigneurial houses that concentrate on the upper part of the city: Condestable Palace, Casa de los Agüero, Casa de Valle, Casa de Mori, etc.

The modern part of the city is also a reflection of the bourgeois's modernist aspirations of the second half of the 1905 th century and the beginning of the th century, as evidenced by the Casa Serafina, the architectural ensemble of Alameda-Gurugú, or the bridge between Colindres and Treto, an engineering feat during its commissioning in.

Located at the location of a former monastery, its construction dates back to the sixteenth century. Chapels were added later, forming a three-nef construction today. Behind a facade of herre style, we discover the master altar and its eighteenth century retable. But the importance of this church lies in the presence of the Santo Cristo of the Agonía, a statue of the agonizing Christ who chairs the master altar. The legend tells us that during the Holy Week of 1919, the faithful saw his eyes move and watched them with tenderness.

This 24 500 hectare area is situated on horseback between the valleys of the Saja and Besaya rivers. In fact, the Natural Park is only part of the immense national reserve of Saja, which covers almost the entire western half of Cantabria from the River Besaya to the Peaks of Europe. The forests of this protected area are a fine example of the Atlantic forests clean to humid Spain: oaks, beech near the river Saja and its tributary Argoza, birch. The wildlife is rich in deer, deer and wild boar. Large prairies, Les, keep livestock on day-parole. It is thanks to this form of exploitation that the Tudanca cow, the indigenous race of Cantabria, has been preserved. The Saja is a river where trout are fished. It seems enough to say the fisherman's prayer (on the line): " Give me, my God, a fish so great that I don't need to lie. "

Less impressive than Covalanas by his paintings, Cullalvera is by his spectacular and immense mouth. Located in the heart of the village, the gallery measures no less than 12 km long, half in the straight line. So much more easily than in the small gallery of Covalanas. The paintings were discovered in 1954. Opened to the public in 2007, it offers enough space to accommodate stage spaces and also lends itself to geological observation with beautiful concretions all along the walls.

The paintings are concentrated in a sector several hundred metres from the entrance. What, as in Covalanas, presupposes that they were in total darkness and visible only by artificial lighting. There are many signs and symbols as well as horses and deer.

Certainly the most moving collection of rock paintings in the Iberian Peninsula. If the gallery is smaller than in other caves and fewer paintings, they were designed and realized not as isolated drawings but as a real work of art with subjects communicating between themselves and with the visitor as the latter advances in the cave. Light games and wall shapes are studied to give the best possible movements and prospects. It is really the great art that you recommend to discover on guided tour to do nothing to lose the very many details that make Covalanas such a particular cave. The narrow gallery imposes small groups, 7 or 8 people maximum, which facilitates contact with the works as with the guide. Rarely will you have the opportunity to be so close to original paintings in a good state of conservation!

The cave is 2,5 km from the city centre. A very pleasant hiking trail makes it possible to walk on foot, as long as you face the difference of just over 200 m. It is a good way to discover the beautiful panoramas surrounding the cave. Many populations were believed to inhabit caves in prehistoric times. A total of 14 caves decorated with paintings or engravings were found in the vicinity.

Covalanas is a space entirely dedicated to painting, a kind of cinema or prehistoric museum. Research has indeed shown that places of habitation were lower on the mountain, and only painting tools were found in the cave itself. The artist or artists came here only to exercise their art, with a goal that we still don't know. In any case, they painted in a place where the only way to see paintings was to bring light. At 65 metres from the entrance to the cave, the gallery is actually diving in the dark, and lighting to lamps should help to give movement effects to the animals represented.

The paintings would be 7 000 years older than the Altamira bison and the Mammoths of Lascaux. The animals represented here are deer and biches, animals placed very high in the Mammal Pantheon represented on Hispanic walls. The technique used is that of pointillism: you will notice that the strokes are not full but formed of point alignments obtained by placing the inch, coated with manganese oxide, on the wall.

There are about twenty figures, including a buffalo and a horse, all others are biches or deer. Although it is difficult to interpret the will of the artist, you will notice that the overall scheme responds to a plan and that the choice of locations is nothing insignificant. The animals seem to be watching us, moving away or repprocher from us depending on where we are in the gallery, without any failure in the route. At some distances, the biches of the entrance of the gallery might seem true, as the watchtower while the others are already fleeing upon arrival. We will certainly never know the motivations of the artist of Covalanas, and if the visit of the cave does not provide answers, she at least has the merit of urging us to question the meaning of these paintings and the message they give us.

3 km from the village of Miera, the caves offered shelters that our hunter-gatherers were certainly attending 10 to 30 000 years. For the time being, they had a high quality of life with a favourable climate during the summer months. They lived from hunting, most of the large animals following river valleys to migrate or simply drink, but also to fish thanks to abundant salmon, often very large as evidenced by the fossils found.

The caves of Salitre, closed to the public for conservation (but whose cave of Sopeña offers some reproductions), had a residential use but, at least two times, around 18 000 and 15 000 BC, or two periods of the upper Paleolithic (the Solutréen and the Magdalénien), they also served as rock sanctuaries. The reproduction of the cave and the fac of the many updated paintings in the original caves can be seen in the Sopeña. The opportunity to follow a visit that combines archaeology, rock art and geology.

In the livable part, that is, the mouth of the cavity, have been reconstituted from residential areas where they are exposed to everyday objects used by our ancestors to cook, hunt, paint, dress, manufacture tools, lit and maintain fire…

In the plus part of the gallery, sheltered from light, there are cave paintings: red, drawn to manganese oxide, and black, drawn to carbon. Deer, biches and horses are the dominant silhouettes on the different panels.

The guided tour will take you further into the cave which is also a geological marvel with many natural sculptures formed by time, water and erosion. This was where the cave bears were hibernate, which shared the caves with the first men. Sopeña has been found several skeletons of dead bears during their sleep.

Cantabria, located in the north of Spain, is a diverse tourist destination offering a wide range of possibilities for visitors. The region is renowned for its superb beaches, including those of Santander, which surround the city and make it a popular destination for all publics. Mountain lovers will also be delighted by the peaks of the Picos de Europa, which offer spectacular scenery and are home to the oldest monasteries on the Iberian Peninsula. History buffs can visit the caves of Cantabria, some of which are decorated with paintings dating back over 20,000 years. When it comes to gastronomy, Cantabria is renowned for the quality of its seafood and produce. Many restaurants offer traditional cuisine, while a group of young chefs is developing a "nouvelle cuisine" that is taking Cantabrian gastronomy to a new level. Cantabria offers a complete tourist experience, combining nature, culture, history and gastronomy.

The beach of Punta is accessible by car: bring good half-hour drive, not forgetting the traffic jams. In summer, it is almost annexed by Santanderinos (accessible in 15 minutes by boat). There are also boats for Somo, a town of holiday that has its beach, and for its Pedreña neighbour, famous for its very select golf Course, which made its first putts.

The Praza de la Leña, with its arcades and naïf calvaire, re a medieval village square to perfection.

Not far away, the Praza Teucro with a spectacular coat of arms is visibly marked by a local nobility that saw great. On the square of Mugartegui, a palace contains the Ethnographic Museum, and Herrería Square has a fountain in the gardens in front of San Francisco Church.

A little further behind the cathedral, the Monasterio San Martin Pinario chairs the San Martín Square of a superb façade with a plateresque altarpiece and a double-stolen staircase. By entering the church, the size of the single nave is striking. Admire the beautiful canopy vault, illuminated by a tambour lantern characteristic of Byzantine style. The altarpiece of the altar, designed by the architect Casas y Novoa in 1730, is de style.

The aquarium has an interior tunnel where you can see the sharks moving. There are 15 000 specimens of 150 species.

Most certainly the most complete popular traditions museum in the region. Everything is presented with meticulous attention and didactic meaning: The sea (boats and fishing instruments), small craft (blacksmiths, stone cutters, rémouleurs), fields work, basketry, lace… This is the transformation of a log (zoco). Fascinating models allow us to explore Galician habitat, with the typical granite hórreo. But the highlight of the visit is perhaps the triple helical staircase met during the visit: insane masterpiece of the architect Domingo de Andrade who will make you lose his head.