Casi se me olvide Santander! [I almost forgot Santander!]

Shoot! Hey guys, I almost forgot to write about our last excursion! 

Well, we went to Santander, which is north on the Cantabrian Sea, in Cantabria.  (Huh, never would have guessed that, eh?) 

Santillana del Mar - pueblo house

On Saturday, May 5th, our group left Valladolid bright and early at 8am to drive north to Santander.  We drove through our fair share of rain, and we were afraid our excursion would be ruined by rain, but alas, it held off all day! 

First we stopped in a small town called Santillana del Mar (literally a small town, with a population of about 1,000) which is commonly known as the town of three lies.  First, there is no saint (sant), and second, it isn't flat (llana), but rather full of hills.  And finally, thirdly, there is no sea (mar).  Anyway, while there, I tasted some of the local treats, called quesera, y sobaos.  The quesera was similar to flan consistency, but it was made out of cheese, so similar to a cheesecake, but with less form...uff, I can't explain it properly.  Anyway, the sobaos was a sweet bread.  They were both extremely rich, but yummy!

We also saw the Roman Colegiata, which used to be the site of a Benedictine monastery. In this town, I also found my first white and black Holstein cows!  :)  

This is a photo of the Colegiata.  You can see how old it is...it was super eerie to be in, because they had tombs of people all over, and it just had this really strange feeling to it.

I couldn't leave out the cows!!

This is also a photo from the Colegiata, you can see the influence of the Roman arcs and columns in the architecture.  We were able to enjoy the blue sky for a little bit here!















After a brief stop in this city, we headed north to Santander.  This city is known for it's beaches...but since it was cloudy, a group of us went with the professors to walk to the peninsula and see the Royal Palace that was built for the nobles to summer home and vacation in.  After that we had some free time and just bummed around the city.  It wasn't a very busy excursion, but it was really nice to relax.  We also enjoyed some delicious ice cream (ok, what ice cream isn't delicious?) and boarded the bus around 6pm to head back home.

Here is the beach, it was a really nice sand beach, but you can see how great the weather was!  :)

And this is the palace build for the kings and queens' summer homes.  It's called Real Palacio de la Magdalena (which translates as Royal Palace of the Muffin...) 

Anyway, I know it's a quick recap of what we did, but it was such a relaxed, laid back excursion, it felt really good!  So there's not too many things we did/saw.  But I thoroughly enjoyed it anyway! 

I hope you've enjoyed reading my blog, as we're nearing the end of our semester!  :) 

besos y abrazos,
Erin