Santander

From Covadonga, rejoin the AS114, where you turn left to skirt Cangas de Onís and follow signposts for Santander onto the N634. (Cangas de Onís is a most attractive town, well worth a detour—it has a picture-perfect, 13th-century, humpbacked bridge adjacent to the modern road bridge.) You soon come to the N634, where you turn right in the direction of Santander joining the autopista A6, which whisks you along through some very pretty countryside, to the exit for Santillana del Mar.In Santillana del Mar, the major attraction is atmosphere. It could fairly be called the most picturesque village in Spain and has retained its harmonious old-world feeling to an uncommon degree. The pure Romanesque architecture, from the Collegiate Church to the houses along Calle de las Lindas, will delight and amaze you. Just walk around and soak it in, there are some delightful shops and museums. One of the joys of the town is that it is completely pedestrian, though you are allowed to take your car in if you are staying here.Another attraction of this area is its rich archaeological heritage. The Altamira Cave with its 14,000-year-old paintings of bison and other animals became so famous that visitors were damaging the ancient paintings with the large quantities of carbon dioxide they exhaled in the caves every day. To solve the problem, a full-scale reproduction has been made at the Altamira museum. Information on this and other caves that are open to the public is available at the Santallina del Mar tourist office just adjacent to the town car park. When you have finished sampling the unforgettable atmosphere of Santillana, head east on the autopista (A6 which becomes A8) around Santander, a mostly modern provincial capital whose old city was destroyed in 1941 by a tornado and the resulting fires. The road turns south to skirt the bay and continues inland through cultivated farmland around Colindres, where you regain sight of the sea. Shortly afterward, you bypass Laredo, a popular seaside resort with a beautiful, large beach on Santona Bay. The freeway moves away from the coast, for a bit, through green rolling hills.