La Magdalena (no, it's not a dance)

It's a park in Santander. When you need a break from the beach, head over to the peninsula and spend a couple hours walking around.

mixing it up with alllll the styles

There's an interesting palace - it's up a hill, but at least there is shade! The people of Santander raised funds to build the palace as a gift, a summer house for the royal family. I guess they don't do camping... The palace is a little crazy, incorporating French, English and regional styles. My guess is that several donors refused to participate unless their ideas were incorporated. Anyway, it makes for a fun visit and the views of the bay and ocean are pretty amazing.

come on in, guys, the water's fine!

We loved the (free!) zoo, especially the penguins, because who doesn't love penguins? There are ducks and some other critters as well, but after the penguins, they seemed rather hum-drum.


it's not cold, really!

If you're tired, you can take a train back down to the beach, but you'll miss the model ships, and we're talking large-scale models. Big, wooden, open hulks, I can't believe people crossed the sea in those things!

fine then, i'll just swim over here by myself...