Santander - What to do in Santander, Cantabria, Spain
We arrived in Santander after a three hour bus trip from Oviedo. It was a very busy bus full of young people with lots of camping gear. Bit random, but think they were all off to a music festival. (Should have been a sign that things might be a bit busy in Santander).
Our hotel was only 400m from the bus station. The hotel Bahia (Bay) was in a perfect position. We had amazing views of the bay, mountains and park lands as well as the art museum, Centro Botin.
The hotel was five minute walk to the shopping area, the cathedral and 10 minute walk to the busy and most popular bar and restaurant area.
There is a promenade that runs all along the bay, past some beaches, around the headland and to the most popular and biggest beaches in Santander that are on the Cantabrian Sea.
Magdalena Peninsular
Our first adventure out and about we headed to the headland, or the Peninsular de Magdalena, where the Palacio de Magdalena sits high on the water’s edge.
On the way you walk along the bay where there is a sailing school, kayaks, stand up paddle boards, and a couple of the smaller beaches - Playa de Los Bikinis and Playa de Magdalena. The bay is very protected so there are a lot of water activities, boats, and water ferries crossing from one side to the other. So much to see, and on a beautiful sunny day, it is gorgeous.
When we arrived at the peninsular, we were amazed because we discovered a few things we knew nothing about. The first was the open air “zoo”, which had huge rocky enclosures with seals and a few penguins.
Next, we came across a fascinating display of boats – The Three Galleons of the Cantabrian Mariner.
The one display though, that caught our attention was La Balsa, which was a big raft, with a cabin on top. It was made out of balsa wood. This raft sailed 13,700 kilometres for 161 days from Ecuador to the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, Australia (where we live!!) in 1970. The captain (who was born in Santander) and 3 crew became instant celebrities. There are parks called La Balsa in Mooloolaba, where the raft landed.
La Balsa, after being on display in Australia for some time was shipped back to Santander Spain, where in July 2022 (some 52 years later) we were standing in front of it. Pretty amazing story.
We continued on to the Magdalena Palace. The palace was built early in the 1900’s as a summer house for the royal family. We walked around the palace and checked the beautiful flower gardens and sculptures.
We finished our walk through the parklands around the bay and back along the promenade.
Santander
Santander was first mentioned in 1068 but it didn’t officially become a city until 1755.
A lot of the city was ruined by fire 1941 including the Cathedral.
It is a modern city with wide roads, modern buildings, modern art and statues.
The city was an important port for Castille in the middle ages to trade with the new world.
There is a busy ferry terminal where cruise ships dock and the ferry from the UK arrives most days.
Playa de Sardinero
This is the biggest and most beautiful beach area in Santander. It is actually two beaches, the Primera (first) and Segunda (2nd).
They are divided by the Jardines de Piquio – which are a beautiful garden area on a small headland.
The beach has white sand, it is flat and wide being 1.3km long and 80m wide. It was one of the busiest beaches we have ever seen, but it wasn’t overcrowded.
The beach has a promenade along the length of it with the classic accommodation places, restaurants and even a casino along the beach area.
There is a golf course at one end and a lighthouse in the distance.
We decided to enjoy a day at Sardinero Beach. We hired a couple of sun beds under a shade cover.
We both had a swim in the Cantabrian Sea and the water temperature (lucky for Lyle) was actually quite warm. We were surprised that it was actually warmer than when we were in the south of Spain.
We booked the window seat in the fancy Michelin Star restaurant just behind our beach chairs for lunch. We had the menu del dia and the food was delicious and of course a few vinos as well.
Day trip to Comillas
Comillas is a small village about 50km from Santander. It is the most quaint, cobblestoned, gorgeous, old village.
We arrived at the Antiqua Universidad Pontifica which was built in 1890 by the Marquis de Comillas for educating candidates for the priesthood.
The inside of this stunning building had decorations by Guadi including wooden sculptures of all the animals that were on Noah’s ark.
The university sits on top of a hill with views over the village of Comillas. The hills are lush green and the gardens and trees are beautifully manicured.
Next stop was the highlight of the day – the Capricho de Gaudi.
Gaudi is famous in Spain for his architecture in Barcelona, including the world renown Sagrada Familia Basilica.
But, before Gaudi was famous, he designed a mansion for his wealthy friend Maximo Diaz de Quijano. This is called the Capricho de Guadi.
What a house! The thing you first notice are the 100’s of ceramic sunflowers covering the building as well as the coloured tiles and the small tower (minaret). The gardens are still the original design and you get the best views from the edge of the garden back to the Capricho.
The timber work inside including the window frames were so stylish. In one room the ceiling as a timber decoration which has the same number of squares as there are keys on a piano.
You can walk all through the mansion, step out onto the patio where Maximo would have had his breakfast. You can also take the small spiral staircase up the minaret to view the tower from the top. There is nothing about this mansion and gardens that wasn’t amazing. You could walk around and find something new to look at in each room.
Comillas also has a lovely beach area, with a promenade with lots of cafes and restaurants with a fishing area at one end.
There are a quite a lot of rather large mansions surrounding the 17th century cobblestoned plaza. Many Spanish people have holiday homes in Comillas, therefore it is quite busy during the summer holiday season.
Water cruise
The are boats tours that leave from the jetty in Santander every hour or so. The boat trip takes you out of the Bahia de Santander and around the Magdalena Peninsular. Then you cruise up the main beach area in the Cantabrian Sea where you have a fantastic view back to the beaches, and of the golf course and the lighthouse.
Slowly making the way back the boat floats around the Isla Mouro where there are quite a lot of pleasure craft and often scuba divers. The island also has a small light house.
On the way back into the Bay of Santander, the boat sails along the other side where there are some exclusive beach areas.
On a nice day, this is a perfect way to see the sights of Santander and the surrounding beaches and islands.
Semana Grande
Semana Grande means party week. It is Santander’s celebration of the love of their city, Cantabria, their food, culture, music and everything in between. It hadn’t been held for three years, and we happened to arrive the exact week it was on.
There were so many Spanish people out enjoying all the food and entertainment every day for a week.
There were major music festivals in the Magdalena Peninsular. Every plaza in town had a collection of pop-up restaurants that were all doing pintxos (tapas) and a drink for 3.5 euro. There were stages in the plazas that had at least two performances every night, from Spain’s answer to the Wiggles, flamenco, rock bands and traditional Spanish Bands.
There were children’s fairgrounds with all the rides and characters as well as a full circus.
Street acrobats and street performers surrounded the parks and each night a dance troupe would dress up in their full costumes and perform for the crowd. Most of these events were free and family friendly.
All the restaurants had extra tables outside full of people enjoying the atmosphere.
DJ’s were set up on random corners around the bar areas with people dancing.
The bull ring had bull fights every night, which is still a popular event in Spain.
It was certainly a party week – which we just happened to be in Santander as it was happening.
It was absolutely full on and fabulous.
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