Santander Spain

Are you flying, driving, taking a bus or train?

I was in Santandar for 3 days last summer and really enjoyed it. It was part of a five week trip. I did a blog report and you might get some useful information from it. http://andiamo.zenfolio.com/blog/2017/9/crisscrossing-the-camino---5-weeks-in-northern-spain-part-3-san-sebastian-to-santander

A highlight for me was the day I walked out to the lighthouse. The Península de la Magdalena was also great. The whole city has a nice, very 'un-touristy' vibe.

There are some photos in the blog report but more are here: http://andiamo.zenfolio.com/p326887656

Two good side-trips that can be made without a car:

• Santillana del Mar (public bus)
• Picos de Europa (bus tour; it was on Wednesday in 2016)

Santander has a magnificent beach but not a great deal of old architecture due to a catastrophic fire in 1941. Without side trips, more than one day would have been too much for me, given all the interesting places in northern Spain. But if you're a beach-lover, you'll probably be content.

There is also the Palacio de la Magdalena, is a royal palace open for tours and conferences. It is also famous as the hotel used in Gran Hotel, a Spanish-style Downton Abbey but 100% more soapy. Watch it on Netflix.

I believe a tour costs around 3euros.

Thank you! I won't have a car, but I would take a train even 45-60 min to another town to explore a city or town or area for a day trip since I know Santander is mostly beach... thank you!!

Santillana del Mar is a bus trip; no train service. Don't limit yourself to the train. Santander is on a north-south rail line and doesn't have fast train connections to any cities I've heard of. You can ask locally anout whether there's a good quick train-trip option, but my first, second and third suggestions would all be for that bus tour to the Picos de Europa, which probably still runs just once a week on Wednesdays. The scenery is great, you take an alpine lift up to a high perch and, and the old stone town of Potes (lunch break) is charming. It would be cheaper to rent a car for a day and make a do-it-yourself trip, but the driver would have to keep his eyes on the road and wouldn't get to enjoy the scenery much.

"Don't limit yourself to the train. "

This is very important; in this region, train service is minimal and can be slow, while bus service is extensive and frequent. The buses are quite nice; some even have seatback entertainment systems like an airplane! The only problem is finding which bus goes where, and when. Acraven's trick worked well for me: go to Rome2Rio and search for your route https://www.rome2rio.com/. See which bus companies serve the route, but don't trust any further information you get from Rome2Rio. Instead, go directly to the bus company's website to get schedules, fares, etc. Note that many bus company websites don't have an English language option, so you will probably need Google Translate