When planning our trip to northern Spain, it occurred to us to wonder how far off the beaten path we would find the famous Paleolithic cave paintings. As it turned out, not far. From Bilbao, we rented another car and headed west towards the mountains, making for Altamira, El Castillo, and La Moneda.
El Castillo (the Castle) and La Moneda (the Money) are minutes away from each other along a mountain path. La Moneda is mostly interesting for its rock formations, but El Castillo contains the oldest known cave art in Europe (at over 40,000 years old). They are discs and stencils of hands made by blowing pigment onto the rock surfaces. There’s also representational art in the cave, although it is a little more recent (but, not much). We were impressed with the skillfulness of the execution and how the artists incorporated the naturally occurring contours of the rock surface into the compositions. The back or stomach or haunch of the animal wouldn’t actually be drawn, for example, but the artist would enhance the animal form one might see in the rock contours by using pigment to fill in the “missing” elements of the design.
The most (justifiably) famous Spanish cave is Altamira. It is open only to a few visitors who are chosen by lottery in order to conserve the artwork. In fact, we met two young men during our visit of El Castillo, one of whom had been fortunate enough to have been chosen to go into the cave. His friend showed us a video showing how visitors are suited up in what look like hazmat suits for their tours. However, a “Neocave” has been built that is a faithful, life-size replica of the cave and the paintings, visits to which are controlled with timed tickets. There’s also a sizable display covering cave art and other early human topics that could take most of a day to thoroughly consume.
Altamira’s art was produced at different eras ranging from 36,000 years ago to 13,000 years ago. It was the areas further into the cave (rather than closer to the entrance) that were used for the paintings. To Jim’s question why the cave walls and ceiling weren’t smudged with soot from the fires or torches used to see inside the caves, the guide at El Castillo explained that animal fats were used for lighting because they burned much cleaner than wood and didn’t produce that kind of smoke. To make the paintings, the artists used charcoal and ochre (iron oxide). They are very cleanly and precisely rendered, so that it’s clear that the painters must have practiced extensively elsewhere before committing their art to the cave walls and ceilings.
Being already in Cantabria, how could we not visit one of the small towns in the hills?
We chose the one Sartre called the prettiest town in Spain in one of his novels (it’s amazing the research promotional people do), Santillana del Mar.
We even managed to have a nice lunch, after once again confirming that we couldn’t find anywhere to eat lunch that opened earlier than 1:00 (we must confess to never fully adapting to Spanish dining hours).
And we visited the town’s Romanesque church and (no longer functioning) monastery before making our way to our house in the countryside.
A house along a lane in a tiny farming village
In the midst of fields with the pungent smells of country life
A house we couldn’t find without first rendezvousing with our host at the bar along the “main” road and following her along a narrow lane to the edge of the village.
Where Amanda put together a meal for us with ingredients purchased in the nearest town, including hake cut to her order by the fish monger in the supermarket, and fresh figs just pulled from the tree in the garden.
Knowing of our interest in food and plan to next visit San Sebastián, our host pushed us to drive into the city of Santander for lunch, as she maintained that the food was just as good and cost half of what we would pay in San Sebastián.
So, we took the plunge and had a great meal
At a restaurant that hands out a little dictionary with the names of foods in eight languages. We think we’ll keep it!
