Our last full day in Spain before we head back to the UK tomorrow on the same route of travelling via Madrid from Santander. We packed and left the peaceful vineyard where we've been staying for the past 4-nights and started to head back in the direction of Santander where we have a one night stay.
We had planned to stop at Santona on route for lunch and we had also seen it on the Rick Stein program but needless to say, yet again we could not find his restaurant so after a bit of wandering around the little town via the busy port we found an excellent little place right on the town square. We got talking to a Spanish retired chap who used to work in London and wanted to practice his English. He told us that Santona is the capital of anchovy fishing and they literally caught tonnes of fish in May which are all packed up for the world market.
We were enjoying our chat but had to cut it short to travel to the Cuevas Covalanas. I had read about these caves before we left the UK and managed to book a couple of limited tickets during the royal wedding last Saturday (and managed it all in Spanish!). These are neolithic caves with cave art from 20-30,000 years ago. What I had not read was that they are quite remote and once parked up it was almost a kilometre of steep uphill walking (at a fast pace as I had not allowed time for this!). However, we made it and discovered that there were only 4 of us (us and another Spanish couple) with a guide. The paintings are amazing and the name - Cuevas Covalanas translates as Cave of the Red Deer. The guide spoke mostly Spanish but translated a little into English and they really were impressive.
We slowly meandered back down the track this time (me admiring the local Bombederos who were practicing their mountain rescue skills and changing in the car park!). This is the view which shows how high we were taken on the way back down with thunder rumbling in the distance.
Finally we arrived back in Santander, funnily enough parking just a few meters from where we parked just over 3 weeks ago when we arrived and were killing time waiting for our suitcases to arrive.
