Wow! What an incredible day we have had!

 

Hola!

Up this morning only to find that somehow or other, I’ve managed to muck up the time on our alarm clock. So, while I thought it was just on 7 am, turns out it was a quarter to 8 am!  Whew!  Not sure what happened, as I just love our little clock.  It has a button on the front that you can push in the dark of night and it lights the face of the little clock up so you actually know what time it is without having to turn on the light!!  Do hope it’s OK, but we’ll have to keep an eye on it!  So, needless to say, we were a little later than normal getting down to breakfast.  Buffet was okay; not as nice as some we have had, but better than others.

Day started out pretty cloudy!

Picos de Europa mountains

Downtown Santander

Some lovely buildings!

Replica carving and me

We found the museum!

Beautifully made hooks

Carved bone

Just exquisite!

Beautiful face of an ibex

Another horn carved

Carved to represent a fish!

Very early pottery

One of the first caldrons

Moving into the Roman period

Stop for a drink and a little bite!

Beautiful countryside heading to Altamira

Replica of Altamira cave roof

Truly stunning!

Hind

Heading back to Gijon

Lovely ocean!

Our salads -- no blue cheese dressing in sight...

Half a chicken with fries and potato salad

Back up to the room, and gathering papers for our sightseeing today.  We have two objectives, MUPAC Museum in Santander, and Altamira Neocave and museum in Santillana del Mar.  When driving east from Gijon, one first comes to Altamira, but they are open all day.  The MUPAC museum, which I discovered reading Current World Archaeology, is open from 10 am – 2 pm, and then again from 5 – 7:30 pm.  How odd!  So … out into the blue-skied but very coolish day, working out way out of Gijon and on to Santander, about 2½ hours away.

To do a bit of backtracking, we made our first trip to Northern Spain about 7-8 years ago, and at that time we viewed most of the decorated caves in the area; five or six at least.  While I don’t remember offhand which ones we saw, all the information is nicely bound in my very first blog book that the Zappalas and Hilary had made up for me for Christmas after our trip.  (Now, as soon as we get home I bundle the latest blog off to Blog2print and voila – a new volume of our travels preserved!  Seriously, they make the very best souvenirs!)  

Now to change course entirely … when we were first becoming seriously interested in ancient civilizations and cultures, we personally visited many archaeological sites. However, at a certain point, Robert wondered out loud where all the artifacts were ending up, as they are certainly not preserved on the sites themselves.  So, we decided to do what became known as our “Museum Trip” – one winter we visited museums in Oxford, London, Berlin, Vienna, Prague, Bolzano, Munich and Paris.  It was quite a trip!  So now, (after a day at two museums) we find that the same things pertain to the decorated caves! So many things were found other than the paintings and: Where were they?  Well, today we found some!  

We had never been into Santander before, and truly, it’s a lovely city! Beautiful architecture, and a beautiful seafront.  Also lots and lots of traffic!  Robert had programmed the location information into Emmy (our GPS), but she got us right into the center of town and said we had arrived!  Right… We actually found several signs pointing to the museum, but as we got closer, everything disappeared!  Robert found some gentlemen near the convention center to ask, and they directed him back into town.  This time, we parked the car in an underground parking garage which let us out in the city center.  Apparently, this really wonderful museum is entirely UNDERGROUND –  and unless you know how to get there, you really won’t find it!  This museum must be the best-kept secret in Europe.

So … from the town square, we found a lady who directed us down the street several blocks, and then “around the outside.”  Hmmm…Turns out that the museum sits directly under the old market square, which has been turned into quite a lovely shopping arcade.  And, believe it or not, there was also a Tourist Information office available!!  We were able to get a map and excellent directions “left turn, left turn” and we were there!  

You really have to be almost on top of it before you see any signage whatsoever.  For such an amazing museum, we found that very odd!  It is called MUPAC which stands for Museum of Prehistory and Archaeology of Cantabria.  We bought our tickets at street level and then had to find our way down one flight of stairs to the museum itself.  We were greeted by four folks all sitting along one long desk. There was museum information there, as well as information in English and French.  We stuffed our coats into a locker and then headed into the museum itself to follow their path.  It was nothing short of AMAZING!

First of all, every exhibit was presented first in Spanish, and then there were buttons for information in French and English.  Unlike many museums which have some very questionable translations, the English was perfect in both grammar, content and spelling.  Very nice!

The artifacts were exhibited in order by age, going back as early as 40,000 BC and into the Magdalenian era (c. 17,000-12,000 BC).  The carvings made on bones of various sorts were truly superb. We saw some of the most beautifully carved pieces we have ever seen.  Our relatives were very, very creative!  They then proceeded to the Roman era, for some very spectacular finds, but more standard such as the carved stele as grave markers and suchlike. When we arrived at the museum, there was a pile of coats and we could hear the rumblings of school kids, but we never saw them, and by the time we left the museum, we had the place entirely to ourselves!  Not too shabby!

The visuals in the exhibits were outstanding.  They showed how people start fires with flint, made stone tools, skinned animals and prepared skins.  The use of actors conveyed a strong sense that the ancients were people, not just artifacts excavated at archaeological sites.

We stopped in the market area for a little refreshment.  Rhad coffee and I had a bottle of sparkling water.  These came accompanied with a “little bite” each – cheese croquettes, which were wonderful! We decided after this that we might as well head to Altamira, which had NOT closed during the day.  

No problem getting back to the car or out of the garage, but turns out that there was a traffic accident on the one-way street we were on, making things pretty sticky for a bit! Finally got around it, and shot out of town and heading back west on the highway.  It took us probably half an hour or 45 minutes to get to Altamira.  

Altamira, like Lascaux in France, attracted so many tourists that the presence of so many people actually damaged the caves.  In both cases, the actual caves were closed to the public and replicas built to serve instead.  We have never been happy about “replica” caves since we almost became part of the permanent exhibition of Lascaux II (Faux Lascaux, as we call it!) some years ago!  However, the Altamira Museum was supposed to be excellent, so we thought we’d give it a try.

First good thing?  As we were both over 65, our tickets were FREE, and at 2:15 pm we were given tickets to the Faux Neocave at 2:45 pm.  Can’t get much better than that!  As we first needed to take care of some basic needs – bathroom and something to eat, we found our way to their café.  There was another gal sitting at the café counter, and when she heard us speaking English, she said she would be happy to translate for us if necessary.  Well, she did, and we both had little sandwiches – R’s with cheese, ham and tomato, and mine with ham only.  As we talked, she asked us where we were from.  And would you believe it?  She was from Tucson too!  How truly weird is that?!  At any rate, we chatted for a bit before our date at the Neocave, and exchanged email addresses; she is an artist who works on sci-fi and video games, and her name is Liz.  Talk about truly, a small world!

Our time in the Neocave was great, most specifically because we had it all to ourselves!  Don’t know how we managed that, but it was great, and we enjoyed it very much.  The cave paintings were striking and, amazingly, on the ceiling of the cave.  How difficult is that?  Also impressive were the hand silhouettes – where the artist placed his/her hand on the wall and sprayed ochre all over it, leaving a stenciled image.

The museum itself has many artifacts from the various levels of the cave’s many excavations, and did an excellent job in presentation.  It’s certainly not as modern and proactive/interactive as MUPAC, but it is a very good representation of what the history in and around the cave was.

Finally out to the car about 4 pm, and back to the hotel in the 5:30 pm timeframe.  Upstairs to blog, and then figure out what to do for dinner. Robert found that the restaurant – Café Ebano– quite literally next door to the hotel, was open and serving food at all hours.  So, downstairs we went, and in quite literally 100 feet, we were in the restaurant.  To say it is a neighborhood place is an understatement.  We saw all sorts of friends meeting friends, and families meeting other family members – it was total chaos, but the food was excellent! To start, Robert needed a green salad, so we both ordered one – tomato, onion and greens.  The problem was that they only use vinegar and oil – not a Thousand Island or Ranch in sight.  Oh well! Then, we both ordered their roasted chicken dinner.  This was wonderful!  The chicken is SO good here!  We both got half a chicken each, and I even managed to eat more than Robert did!  It came with wonderful French fries, and then a potato salad with tuna on top of it and a bit more greens.  We also had a bottle of Spanish wine from the Douro, which was great!  All in all, the meal was something like 50 €and we loved it all!  Finally finished and back to the hotel and upstairs.  I have told Robert that he is not going to be allowed to go to sleep until I finish posting the blog!  He’s not happy about that!

However, will turn this over to him to read and review, and then do photos!  Still have to figure out what we’re going to do tomorrow!

Lots of love,

m

xxx