Santillana del Mar and Altamira: the culture day

Halfway through an active week, legs ask for mercy and curiosity takes over. This is the day for it.

Morning: Santillana del Mar

Thirty-five minutes away sits one of Spain's best-preserved medieval towns: cobbled lanes, blasonned palaces and the Romanesque Colegiata of Santa Juliana with its carved cloister. Arrive before eleven and you share it with cats and delivery vans rather than crowds.

Midday: Altamira

Five minutes further, the Altamira museum holds an exact replica of the painted cave that changed art history: fifteen-thousand-year-old bison rolling across a ceiling. The original is closed to protect it (a tiny weekly lottery aside), and the Neocueva is genuinely moving rather than a consolation prize. Book online in high season; allow two hours.

Afternoon options

Quesada tasting in town, or push on to Comillas for Gaudi's El Capricho. Either way, dinner is back at the house, where somebody will claim the bison as their new tattoo idea.