Weekend in Santander

For our weekend trip, we all took off to Santander, a city on the northern coast of Spain known for its rain and cloudy weather. When we arrived Friday evening we just toured the city and figured we didn’t have much time to lie on the beach. Keep in mind that it’s sunny and warm outside at this point. Our plan was to wake up the next morning and just stay on the beach all day. Not such a great plan. We woke up the next morning to gray skies and drizzling rain. Instead of going to the beach, we took a bus tour around the city and weren’t allowed to get off the bus! The only time we got to get off was to see the Santander cathedral. As soon as we got back to the hotel we quickly changed into our swimsuits and headed down to the beach. At 3:00 in the afternoon it felt like 50 degrees as we tried to tan in the cloudy weather. After an hour and a half of waiting for the sun, it never got better and I just got colder and colder. In the end, I was sitting in the sand with my towel wrapped around me. I returned to the hotel without a tan or even a hint that sun touched me. According to my host family here, she thinks I didn’t go to Santander because I came back the same color. It’s that bad. Not only was it not a beautiful day for the beach, but to send us home on a bad note the whole northern coast decided to have rain.

The original plan was to stop in Santillana del Mar on the way home. On the outside of each house, the family’s crest was carved into the stone. It used to be the place where the wealthy landowners reside. The cathedral was gorgeous (no photography allowed!), but the whole tour was experienced in pouring rain. I chose to wear my dark brown rainbow sandals, which in turn died my feet brown. The brown won’t come off my feet, so now it looks like I have a fungus. Gross! Even though it rained most of the time, I really enjoyed getting to leave Valladolid and see another area of Spain!