Santillana del Mar

After lunch, our following destination was to be Santillana del Mar, the village of three lies, so called because it is neither a saint (santo), nor is it flat (flat), nor is it by the sea (mar). Haha.

This was a day where I had to drive a lot, practically the whole day, and I was becoming increasingly tired and consequently, irritable. Navigating and driving are two things that I don't do very well together. One or the other, I'll get by, but both of them together? Mmm... So, we almost missed this village. Spanish is a language which likes to use a lot of words. Ever noticed their street names? Cantabria is relatively very small, but it turned out to be where I got "lost" the most!

There was already the previous episode. This time, I was too tired to notice that the destination had been unintentionally changed - this is the problem with touch technology and smart-suggestions software. One warm slip, and you'll end up somewhere else! As I drove on, I was thinking this doesn't look right, this is taking too long, bla, bla, bla. We ended up in Liencres! Oh-oh, I don't think this was part of the plan...

Eventually, we got on the right track again. Remember my mentioning the name problem before? Well, I was on the lookout for Santillana del Mar. When I saw the sign Santillana, I thought no, this wasn't it, and carried on. When there was no sign of Santillana del Mar, I said, damn, that must have been the one. Forget it. We'll go on. It's too late.

But, then, the sign to Santillana appeared once more. I decided to take it. Basically, we were turning back. Oh, well. In the end, I was pleased.

It's a very attractive village. It boasts of 'the prettiest village in Spain' title and, yes, it is very pretty. It's like stepping into a mediaeval village, its stone houses clean and well-maintained. We walked around for a bit, and so did a few hundred others. Yes, as should be expected, especially, this being August, it was full of tourists. You could see that tourism was the mainstay of their economy. And it is very likely that their summer trade tides them over for the rest of the year.

Let me share the photos I took here with you.

Typical stone house converted into a tourist shop right opposite the village car park

Lady catching some sun just outside her home

I though she might object to her picture being taken,
 but she was probably quite amused to be my subject!

The prettiest chemist's I've ever seen ;)

A hostel. The village is on the coastal route of El Camino de Santiago

The greens captured my attention. May be a good restaurant...

Colours and textures

Handicrafts

A typical cobbled street

Organised chaos. Funny, this. It's happened so many times before. No-one looked
up at this balcony. But when they saw me aiming my camera at it, it suddenly
became the focus of everyone's attention! Haha

A posada. Looks good.