GROTTE D'ALTAMIRA

2.6 km southwest of Santillana del Mar, we reach the site of the Cueva de Altamira, a cave classified as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. Sometimes referred to as the "Sistine Chapel of prehistory", access to the cave is now very limited, but a visit to the replica of the cave and its adjoining museum is not to be missed. With the largest set of polychrome cave paintings known in the world, Altamira is part of the Olympus of prehistoric sites alongside Lascaux, Chauvet or Tito Bustillo (Asturias). Numerous bison, but also horses, bulls immortalized by Homo sapiens, about 14,000 years before our era, that is to say more than a hundred animals which jump to the eyes in the big room of paintings (170 m length) in an explosion of reds and blacks. The imposing reclining Bison lowers its horns and raises its tail in a furious gallop, another is pierced with six arrows: refined expressions of a mysterious language, an exorcism ritual, probably before the hunting party. The whole is so powerful, so explicit, that it was believed to be a deception when the caves were discovered in 1879. The profile of a bull drawn in charcoal 20,000 years before Christ inevitably brings to mind Picasso. Since the 1970s, the caves have been visited in small numbers and you had to register at least a year in advance. Since June 2000, the Altamira caves have followed the example of Lascaux, with the opening of a cultural space containing a replica of the caves and a museum