Santander/Cantabria? (1 Viewer)

[classic seanc]

Anyone ever been here?

What's it like? There's not a lot of tourist information around that I could find.
It has wild bears. We want to see the bears.

 

[potlatch]

Man, oh man, I'd love to go there. What's it with Spain being all cool now? Been doing a little research, but I don't drive, and I'm told it'd be tough to get around, or see what the regions have to offer without wheels.

Mad for the game, so they are. Like... venison, partridge etc. Not whores, like.

 

[classic seanc]

Well we don't have a car. Most places seem to rent bikes (some even do it for free). Scooters maybe? You don't need a licence for them do you?

I think we'd like game.

What else has your research thrown up? Ryanair was the main decision maker for this holiday.

 

[ernesto]

been to Cantabria twice. beautiful place. been all around that region with my family and spanish friends as a teenager.
cannot recommend it highly enough.
do it Classic Seanc.
its quite green for a spanish place due to its climate being shaped by the coast & Picos mountains (go up them and then get the cable car through the clouds to the peak. amazing).
the people are real friendly. theres a small tiny ancient old town on the way up thats like being in the middle ages.
we rented a house up the mountains for a week and we saw snakes and wolves n hawks n shit. totally in awe. am going back at some point. i am in love with Spain!

 

[Jill Hives]

It has wild bears. We want to see the bears.

Pack your toothpaste well, grizzly man.

 

[ernesto]

also, go to Fiestas de Guía in Ribedesella. its a bit of a posh seaside town but they a festival there where an annual boat race ends and they go apeshit in the town for a few days. non-stop drinking of the local home-made cider they do. they also lock the cops out of the town for a few days so that theres no arrests (hmmmm). lovely beaches there too.

 

[classic seanc]

Well, I'm going from the 23rd to the 26th of this month, so I don't know if that's possible. Do the bears get drunk?

 

[Jill Hives]

Well, I'm going from the 23rd to the 26th of this month, so I don't know if that's possible. Do the bears get drunk?

Not sure about their alcohol tastes but they like toothpaste and soap. Be dirty and they will steer clear. Clean is tasty. Bears know best.

 

[classic seanc]

Right so, I’m back….

Friday and Sunday night were spent in Santander. Saturday night was spent in Potes, a touristy town up in the mountains, two hours from Santander.

We should’ve made it a longer holiday as we missed a lot of Santander, including the caves and the zoo and prehistoria museum.
Highlights:
-Maritime Museum + aquarium
-Palace de la Magdelena, which is like a fairytale but with sea lions and penguins.
-Going in the low season and having miles and miles and miles of beaches practically all to ourselves.
-Potes was totally totally fucking brilliant. We got a cable car in Fuente De up the mountain (2000metres!) and walked around up there. We got lost in a cloud. We saw hawks swooping around us. We didn’t see any bears though, that was unfortunate.
-The roads were great, I would’ve loved to have had the bike up there. Also there was mountain bikers flying past us on the mountain and that looked like amazing fun.
- The delicious taste of boar meat.
- Also we had sun, rain, thunder and lightning, hail and snow over the three days. The weather is mental, it’s a bit like the west of Ireland that way.

Santander’s great, but everyone should go to Potes, or one of the other towns around there.

We stayed in La Cabana in Potes. It was deadly.


Not so great points:
We asked for a double room for our Santander hostel, they just pushed two single beds together.
While having a car is not essential, it does make things a little easier.
A lot of stuff ain’t open in the low season. We had to get a taxi from Potes to Fuente De and back as there was no buses, which wasn’t cheap. Though the taxi driver was very nice.

 

[potlatch]

OK, seriously thinking of sorting out a megga-trip from Carcassone over to Cantabria and Asturias then back in 2 weeks while trying to settle in about 2-3 places instead of doing a mad interrailing thing.

We don't drive, so bus or train only.

So, the question is, is it realistic to make our way from Hendaye to the bit of the Asturias coastline around the Picos, and maybe a day trip into the mountains, travelling by FEVE trains. Chances are we'd be flying back via Santander, unless some airport in Gijon or thereabouts flies back to London?

 

[classic seanc]

I can't really give you any help, but all the internet searching I did regarding FEVE trains was that they're not very useful at all. They just don't seem to go where tourists want them to go.
However, I was never even able to track down a train timetable so maybe there is a way.....