Cantabria has always been a place we wanted to visit, specially David. We have had the chance to visit many cities of the Spanish north, such as Santiago de Compostela, Caldas de Reis, San Sebastian, Zarautz, Vitoria, Gijón... But Cantabria, which we believe is one of the most beautiful, was the least one.
Given that there's a Spanish say that goes like this: 'Más vale tarde que nunca' (better late than never) we grabbed our car and took a 7 hours trip to Cantabria.

David remembers traveling to Gijon (Asturias) when he was a kid and passing through a huge tunnel (maybe 2-4kms?) which entered being a yellowish landscape and turned into an incredible, intense green on the other side, which was a sign we were entering Asturias.
With that memory in mind we decided to travel to Cantabria with our car instead of a plane so we can watch the landscape colors start to change when getting closer to the north.
Well, we didn't haha. We weren't expecting to pass through the same tunnel David did 15 years ago, but we did expect to see a green foliage sooner. We didn't until we were maybe 100kms away. No harm done though, those last kms were worth it, but next time we'll fly there instead, since it's only 1 hour by plane instead of 7 hours by car.

We arrived to our hotel almost at night. Maybe 8pm. Since we were so tired we just went to visit our hotel's town (Suances), walk a bit and grab something to take away and eat it in the hotel while unpacking and resting.
Something amazing happened when we were waiting in the restaurant for our food: the owner gave us a very tasty dish cooked by one of the customers so we can eat something while waiting and, aside the kindness of both the owner and his customer sharing their food with us we noticed something right away and that is that you can eat A LOT and VERY GOOD in Cantabria.

Now, in the next day, being both all rested and with energy at max we started our 1st day trip around Cantabria. Today it was all about Suances, Santillana del Mar and Comillas.
Considering we are in February those three towns weren't very crowded and many places were closed, so by the end of the day we decided to head directly to Santander, which we were really looking forward to visit.
Here are some pictures of our first day in Cantabria. Keep scrolling down, there's more to tell you!

1st day impressions: Cantabria is AMAZING. It's incredible how many cows there are. Yes, we know... We're weirdos, who gets so excited with cows? Well, we do. It's shocking how many there are, and everywhere!
Also, our thoughts about the Cantabrian coast were confirmed: it's AMAZING. The small villages too, and also the Santander architecture. So far, so good. It has this Parisian resemblance in the rooftops colors and shapes. The decorated facades, which we believe is from the Romanticism, are incredible. There are so many beautiful balconies that make you want to seat there with a good book and a coffee or just listening to music. But we'll get back to Santander's architecture soon, after all is just our first day and is getting dark.

About the roads: now we're talking. That's what David was expecting. All of them surrounded by green grass, trees, small warm houses and animals walking around. Specially cows haha. The sea right there, many zigzags and barely two or three cars with us.

Now is time for our 2nd day. Even though we visited a bit of Santander on the 1st day we barely had the chance to visit the city, and there's a lot to see, so the 2nd day is all about Santander.
But first... It's reunion time! Blanca and Alberto, who got married in Valencia on June 2018, are from Santander. To be honest she's from Valencia and he's from Santander, but they are living there. We wanted to have a coffee with them and know how things are with them, so they recommended a lovely cafeteria in the promenade. It was great to see them again, they are as beautiful and nice as they always have been.

Having said goodbye to them it's time to keep visiting the city. In our first day we visited the El Sardinero beach, the Faro del Cabo Mayor -and walked around surrounding the sea until the Mataleñas beach, and today we were visiting everything we had left: the Palacio de la Magdalena -even though they were remodeling, but is still amazing-, Bikinis beach, Embarcadero Real, the old town with it's architecture, centro de Arte Botín, the Catedral of Santander and some place else.

Before showing you the 2nd day pictures a curios fact, which we didn't have a clue about: did you know that Santander was burnt to the ground and had to be rebuild? It's known as the "Fire of Santander" and it happened in 1941. It happened in a couple of hours and nothing could be done to avoid it nor control it. Incredible.

As we were saying -and you just witnessed- Santander's architecture is amazing. So many details in their facades, the windows mullions, the balconies archs, the colors and how warm it all seems to be. It just makes you wanna sit there and watch people go by. What do you think?

Before we forget there's a place we want to mention. We believe is the best pizza we have ever tried. It is called 'Pizza per tutti' and it's located in Suances. UN-BE-LIVABLE. If you have the chance to try it don't hesitate. You can thank us later, or send us a pizza from that place too. That would be so much better :D

There's no much to say about our third day because it was our going-back-home day. We packed everything, had a great breakfast in the hotel and got ready to drive for 7 hours. Since we had a bit of time before hitting the road and considering how beautiful our room was -and also the mirror, which you have seen some pictures already- we made some goodbye-pictures from our first visit to Cantabria, where we'll go back for sure.

And that's it about visiting new places: Cantabria edition. Stay tuned for new trips and more! ?