Paleolithic
Day 1
9:00 -Breakfast at our hotel in Burgos. Hotel Crisol Almirante Bonifaz. Great option for big families as they have rooms for up to 4 or 5 people, excellent location and good breakfast to charge batteries!
11: 30 - Visit Centro de Arqueología Experimental (CAREX)
13:00 - Visit Yacimientos de la sierra de Atapuerca
16:30 - Visit MEH (Museo de la evolución).
We recommend to visit the museum after visiting Atapuerca, specially with kids as all of the fosils found in the Atapuerca site which are mentioned by the guides are in the museum so the kids loved finding them out and recognising them! The museum is open till late so you have plenty of time.
We left the museum at closing time and shot to our next destination San Vicente de La Barquera
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Day 2
9:00 Early wake up in our apartment in Villa Sofia. We found this on booking.com by chance as it is not in San Vicente de la Barquera town but in the beach of Oyambre a few km out of town. We can address what a gem this place was, own by two brothers who used to live in Denmark and came back to Cantabria to fulfil their dream of opening a resort with their own cider viniard! The apartments are in a big house with views to the sea on one side and to the mountains on the other…increadible, payground, hoemade cider…
10:00 Visit Cueva del Pindal Second day and we had to change plans again! We could not book in advance to visit this cave and after several attempts by phone we finally reached them the same morning but we were told that it was all booked! So we decided to go to Santillana del Mar.
14:00 Lunch at the Parador de Santillana del Mar. After realising that most of the resturantes were close due to be low season or covid we found the parador and we did not regret it! Great quality food in a great environment!
16:00 Visit Cave El soplao .
17:30 Visit the Sequoya Forest..
19:00 Return to Villa Sofia.
Day 3.
Day 3 was a Monday…which in Spain means most museums, caves… are closed! After looking at different options we decided once home schooling finish to head to Parque de Cabarceno for a treat to the kids. As it was a Monday and February we had the whole park for ourselves! Amazing, we were told that we need 5 hours to see everything, but we found that with no one on the road to delay us we were able to see all the animals (except the bears!!) with no rush in less than 3 hours.
After the park we head to Santander were we were going to be based for the next few days.
Day 4
10:00 home schooling in our Airbnb apartment.
14:00 Quick lunch in Café de Pombo. While the food was ok but pricy, it was nice to be outside and the kids had plenty of space to play in the Pombo square.
16:00 Visit to Altamira caves and museum.
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Day 5
10:40 Visit Cuevas del Pendo.
12:30 Early light Lunch at the Jardin del Balneario de Puenteviesgo . Perfect outdoor seating and views of the mountains!
13:40 Visit Cuevas Las monedas
14:40 Visit Cuevas El Castillo
16:30 Visit Museo de prehistoria y arqueología de Cantabria (MUPAC)
20:00 We met our gorgeous Santander family for dinner at Bodega La Conveniente, really easy dinner with kids. And finish the night having the best cheesecake in the world at retaurante Cañadio.
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Day 6
10:40 Visit Cuevas Covalanas You can only enter these caves in groups of 3, so we had to book two slots…worth the wait!!!
14:40 Visit Cueva Cullalvera.
From here we changed our plans and decided to head towards Madrid a day earlier and visit some beautiful “ermitas” and churches on our way…. we stopped in Iglesia San Lorenzo de Vallejo, Iglesia de Santa Maria de Siones and in San Pantaleon de Losa before spending the night in the incredible Hotel rural La puebla in Orbajena del Castillo… the most beautiful village in Burgos! And really good dinner as well!
Day 7
Home schooling and breakfast in the hotel before heading to visit Ermita rupestre de San Miguel, Ermita rupestre de arroyuelos, Colegiata de San Pedro de Cervatos and Santa Maria de Valverde, which was the last stop before taking the motorway all the way back to Madrid
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If I could do it again....
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Here we mention some of our reflexions on how could we have improved our experience. We choose our itineraries to accommodate our three kids' home school and also taking into account the time in the car, etc... So we always are changing and learning from our itineraries to adjust your needs, everyone is different and every journey is unique.
In this section we will try to reflect and learn from our mistakes and success,... and suggest what would we change if we were g
found out on the last day that there is a Culture Passport in Cantabria for a family of 5 that only cost 70 euros and gives you access to museums, caves and many other cultural sites. You can check it here
Also looking back, we would maybe have added an extra day in the east fo Asturias to visit s the cave of Tito Bustillo on the same day of Pindal, and we would have visited the Altamira museum the same day that we went to visit Santillana del Mar, as they are just next to each other and we would avoid time in the car.
We also passed Comillas and San Vicente de la Barquera but did not have time to stop much and visit them with time, but you always need something for the next visit...
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