Towns of Cantabria, Spain: Santillana del Mar

Spain has an outstanding wealth in that discursive variant of the Culture that, in my opinion, is that peculiar set of dimes and diretes, quotations, sayings and popular sayings, that gathered under the code epigraph of the Folklore, constitutes an inestimable treasure anthropological and hermeneutic of the first magnitude.

If the people of La Mancha of Puertollano, where, by the way, my mother was born on December 18, 1929, the popular slander has always consented to call it 'the town of two lies', because it has no port or is in a plain, something similar happens with Santillana del Mar: that 'neither is holy, nor is it flat, nor does it have sea'.

Even so, obviating these details of popular anecdotal, I would not err, at all, if I said that Santillana del Mar is one of the most beautiful and best conserved towns in Cantabria.

Its old quarter, which, judging from the circumstances, seems to have risen, urbi et orbi, around its immeasurable Collegiate Church -where the sepulcher of a saint, Juliana, under whose advocation it is and whose popularity in Cantabria, seems to obey , also, to that curious devotional circumstance that the Asturians feel for a foreign figure, such as Santa Eulalia de Mérida (1) - retains, however, with some modifications, the peculiar charm of its primitive medieval aspect.

Large family houses and beautiful mansions that look like a proud heraldic window display, that tell of a lost history in the unfathomable puddles of that period known as the Reconquista and initiated, according to Muslim sources by Don Pelayo and "his forty donkeys", in the Asturian mountains.

Casonas and mansions, conveniently reconditioned nowadays, that offer an interesting variety of places of restoration -where to savor the substances and rich traditional foods- hostels and hotels, pastry shops -also traditional, where the most representative sweet can be the pasiego (2) - and you have plenty of souvenirs and souvenirs, all aimed at the attention of visitors, which ultimately are their main sources of income, after agriculture and livestock.

Although sooner or later, its beauty and picturesqueness would have made Santillana del Mar an eminently popular place, fame, properly speaking, came to him at the end of the 19th century, when in its term it was discovered that undeniable Sistine Chapel of paleolithic art, which is the Cave of Altamira, whose extraordinary bison are exposed in this article, although in photography taken from the replica of the cave, which was built exprofeso in the Archaeological Museum of Madrid, located in the central street of Serrano.

In this regard, note that for reasons of safety and conservation, visits to the Cave of Altamira are restricted, granting a small number of visits, appointment and waiting time, which can last for years, which is a company little less than impossible to undertake.

There is also, at the exit of Santillana, a curious mansion, which bears the name of 'Salón del Tiempo', which I suppose will be some restaurant and which I did not want to enter during my visit to the city, as it strangely came to me to memory that sentence of Lucretius that says that all hours hurt, but the last kills.

So, remembering that other Latin statement that says 'tempus fugit' and having, in reality, so little time in my favor and so many interesting things to see, I decided to take advantage of mine, setting course again to those mysterious ways of God, where I always find more comfortable than in my own home.

But let no one be deceived: I left Santillana del Mar, with a more than pleasant taste in my mouth.
[Hospital de la Fuenfría, Cercedilla, Madrid, Monday, August 6, 2018]

Notes:

(1) Unlike Santa Eulalia de Barcelona, which is represented by a cross with the shape of a cross or Saint Andrew, Santa Eulalia de Mérida is usually represented, usually, with a cow or an ox at her feet, a circumstance that not only puts us on the track of the ancient ginolátricos cults, but also, also indicates the livestock relationships that were between the northern pastors and their Extremadura counterparts, circumstance for which they share numerous legends, traditions and devotions. In fact, the name of Santa Eulalia, is the origin, among others, of Santolaya, capital of the Council of Morcín, beautiful mining town located on the banks of the Monsacro and about eight kilometers from Oviedo, the capital of the Principality of Asturias.
(2) Curiously, the pasiegos constituted an ethnic group considered 'cursed' and rejected by the rest of the neighbors, such as the vaqueiros de alzada in Asturias or the agotes, in Navarra.

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