I had a surfing lesson with “black ball surfing” in Sardinero. It was my first time surfing and the lesson was a birthday present from my wife.

Well it was a great present to have a memorable experience like that. Surfing is quite hard to get the knack of – but a really addictive challenge trying to stand up and stay on. I had done quite a bit of skate boarding when I was young so I think that helped a bit – but not a lot!. I think we were in the water about an hour which is about as much as I could do because even though I had a wetsuit I started to get cold and even got some cramp in my legs.

It worked like this – I booked up and depending on the surf conditions (for beginners, needs to be not too extreme!) it was either going to be on Sardinero beach, near our hotel ( The Don Carlos Aparthotel ), or we would be driving to another location.

Tips

If you are staying in Santander a short time get booked up straight away so if you don’t get the surf one day you still have time to go another day, and if you get the surf bug you can go again!

One other thing to bear in mind if you are going surfing in Santander is that this school is the only one with their own shower facilities on site.

One of the best aspects of Santander for me is the excellent beaches. There is a great selection of beaches, many have a playpark directly on the sand and some are good for surfing. Here’s a couple of the main beach areas where we spent much of our time. It wasn’t exactly sunbathing weather when we were in Santander so it was more a case of collecting shells and using the play parks.

Sardinero – Still part of Santander but something like a posh beach suburb. Sardinero is home to the casino. It’s the beaches though which steal the show, wide, long sandy beaches with great surfing. There are also rock pools to explore with the kids so there really is something for everyone here.

Magdalena – A peninsula which is home to a real sun trap of a beach called Playa de Bikinis. Apart from being a nice sandy beach you can also enjoy a lovely backdrop of mountains and a fairly busy channel with boats of all shapes and sizes going past. Aside from the beach, there is a lovely park / gardens to walk in, one of the best play-parks in Santander and you will also find an area with penguins and sea lions in an enclosure and can watch the penguins get fed.

Cabarceno Nature Park is an amazing attraction that lies just 16 kilometres from Santander. More than a safari park, Cabarceno covers 750 hectares (1 Hectare = 10000 Square Metres!) and as such is the largest zoological park in the world. Normally when I go to a zoo, much as I enjoy watching the animals, I do feel some guilt that the animals are locked up. At Cabarceno the animals have huge enclosures and enjoy a state of at least semi-freedom. It probably explains why the zoo is so good at breeding animals.

The first stop is the reptile centre where there are some huge snakes, the biggest I have ever seen.  Same goes for a monitor lizard there that must have been over 2 metres long. After that you drive around the park stopping at small car parks to view each animal species. There are tigers, giraffes, zebras, hippos, rhinos, monkeys, an amazing enclosure for brown bears as too for the African elephants and much much more.

To end the day there is a sea-lion show back at the entrance/exit. We went twice during our stay in Santander and loved it. First time we forgot the camera unfortunately. We went for an excellent menu del dia on our first trip, which was actually pretty good and not overpriced, and second time enjoyed a picnic near the giraffes and ostriches.

The name of the park in Spanish is “Parque de la naturaleza de Cabarceno“

Being on the Atlantic coast, the weather in Santander is rather unpredictable. The four months we were there was a very mixed bag, January was quite rainy with a few storms but there were some really nice stretches of a couple of weeks without rain. The weather is so changeable in Santander that even the weather forecast is not reliable. I can remember one day having hail, rain, wind and glorious sunshine all in the space of a couple of hours.

Tip : bring an umbrella.

Bilbao from Santander is easily reached by coach. It takes about 90 minutes and the journey has some beautiful scenery along the way. The coach service is run by “Alsa” part of National Express but it’s a bit better than National Express, for example we got free snacks and drinks onboard as well as headphones for the music channels so it felt a bit luxury!

There are quite many services between the cities each day even as regular as every half an hour. Some of the services are faster than other due to the number of stops so it’s worth a bit of planning to book a faster service. It also seems you can make good savings by booking the tickets in advance online (we didn’t). The website, which is in English is http://Alsa.es.

We went on a Sunday so many shops were closed but it seemed like Bilbao would be a good choice for luxury shopping. We of course went to The iconic Guggenheim – an amazing building. It was great just to walk around outside. There is also a play park there which Eva enjoyed.

Santander to Madrid by train is a pretty nice ride. The trains were much nicer than I expected and at around 5 hours the journey was just long enough not to be too long. As per usual in Spain, everyone from the staff to the other passengers were friendly and gave our daughter plenty of attention (and sweets!, Spanish people always gave her lots of sweets!).

Madrid Hotel

I booked the hotel online at Lastminute.com using their “secret hotels” – it was pretty easy to figure out which hotel it was since they gave away so much in the description. We stayed at the Husa Chamartin, chiefly because it was at the main train station where I knew we would be arriving. In hindsight I think it would have been better off getting something more central, but the location is still good because it’s a transport hub, it’s just the surrounding area is a bit boring / concrete jungle. The hotel was fine – the room was large but rather tired and charmless, the breakfast expensive – had a much better time at a local cafe down the road.

Madrid Overall

Like when I went to Berlin, and even though the Euro was at an all time high against the Pound, I came away being impressed with how, for a capital Madrid offers some great value for money so long as you avoid the obvious tourist pitfalls. There are some great monuments, tapas and big city life to be experienced in Madrid and I would love to go back.

The Don Carlos Aparthotel was our home for four months so I think we are pretty well qualified to give it a full review. I want to start by giving some context – hotel reviews are useless if you don’t know a bit about the people doing the review. I’ve worked in the travel industry for 10 years and am used to staying in four star hotels. I was staying in the Don Carlos with my wife and our 2 year old daughter and we stayed so long because my wife was working in Santander.

Don Carlos Hotel, Santander – Review

The hotel is in a great location in a district of Santander known as Sardinero which is a beach suburb, popular with tourists thanks to the great beach and the fact that Santander Casino and various restaurants and cafes are in the area. The hotel is up the start of a steep hill but only about twenty metres so not too arduous. If you have a car there is safe underground parking available. Around 50 metres to Sardinero beach even less to cafes, restaurants, kiosks and The Casino the location is very good and it is a pleasant half an hour walk along the sea to Santander city centre.

The rooms at The Don Carlos are apartments which was great for us as we were staying so long and so it was nice to be able to cook our own food albeit with a basic kitchen. The kitchen comprises a fridge, microwave, two electric cooking rings, sink, and ample cupboard space and a good range of cooking utensils, cutlery and dishes. There is also a bar / cafe / restaurant downstairs which is excellent, a feeling which is reinforced by the fact that it is often full of locals.

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