Comillas

The sunflower tiles catch the Atlantic light long before you reach the gate. From the bottom of the hill they look like yellow dots scattered across a green-and-brick mosaic; up close they resolve into the façade of El Capricho, an 1880s villa that Antonio Gaudí designed for a sugar-rich returnee from the Philippines. It is the first clue that Comillas is not the average Cantabrian fishing village.

With barely 2,000 permanent residents, the place is compact enough to cross on foot in fifteen minutes, yet the streets hold more Modernista ironwork than some provincial capitals. The reason lies in a nineteenth-century quirk: when the Spanish royal court began summering on the cooler north coast, Comillas became the San Tropez of its day. Madrid aristocrats and Cuban-Spanish millionaires arrived with architects in tow, and the local limestone proved obliging. The result is a town where fishermen’s cottages share alleyways with neo-Gothic palaces and where every other balcony seems designed for royal waves.

Gaudí, marquésas and a palace you can actually enter

El Capricho still charges €7 for a self-guided wander round its rooms, spiral staircases and glass-walled conservatory. Numbers are capped; at Easter and August weekends the queue can snake back down the hill, so the trick is to book the first slot (10:30) or arrive after 18:00 when coach parties have migrated to the ice-cream parlours on Calle Joaquín del Piñal. Inside, the audio guide (English available) explains how the young Gaudí used this commission to experiment with temperature control: hollow ceramic walls, adjustable shutters, and a chimney disguised as a minaret that actually draws air upwards instead of smoke.

Five minutes uphill, the Palacio de Sobrellano dominates the ridge like something transplanted from the Loire. Built for the first Marqués de Comillas, it now belongs to the town council and opens for 45-minute guided tours (€5, Spanish only, but English handouts provided). The palace ticket office also sells the combined ‘Ruta Monumental’ pass which includes El Capricho and the adjacent Capilla-Panteón for €12 – worth it if you intend to do two out of three. The chapel’s interior is pure marble and mosaics, designed to house the family crypt; on windy days the door slams like a Hammer film, making half the visitors jump.

Beyond the palace gates the Universidad Pontificia stretches across the crest, its stone façade glowing ochre at sunset. The seminary still trains a handful of theology students, so only the cloister and auditorium are visitable on pre-arranged tours. Even without going inside, the terrace gives the best vantage point over Comillas: green meadows tilting steeply towards a horseshoe bay, fishing boats bobbing on a slate-coloured sea, and behind it all the snow-dusted Picos de Europa acting as a weather barrier that keeps winter milder than you’d expect at this latitude.

From plaza to port: the bit the postcards miss

Drop downhill from the university and you reach the Plaza del Corro de San Pedro, a triangular square arcaded on three sides. In the morning old men in flat caps occupy the benches, feeding crumbs to pigeons while discussing the price of anchovies. By noon the terraces fill with day-trippers from Santander sharing raciones of rabas – squid rings the size of doughnuts, properly drained so they don’t ooze oil. The adjoining alleys are barely two arm-spans wide; laundry hangs from wrought-iron rails, and the smell of grilled sardines drifts up from basement kitchens. It is photogenic, yes, but it is also lived-in: expect delivery vans squeezing past you at walking pace and the occasional tractor tyre propped against a 17th-century doorway.

The working harbour sits five minutes south. It is no more than a breakwater, a slipway and twenty small boats painted in the traditional red-and-green Cantabrian palette. When the tide recedes the sand stretches almost to the rocks, revealing rock-pools where local children hunt for crabs with plastic nets. At high tide the beach shrinks to a five-metre strip and the lifeguard raises the red flag; swimmers then migrate to the neighbouring Playa de Oyambre, a ten-minute drive or a half-hour coastal walk along the Camino de Santiago del Norte. The promenade café, El Pescador, keeps English menus under the counter and will grill your sardines without the customary bucket of salt if you ask politely.

Walking off the queso de nata

Comillas sits on the western lip of the Oyambre estuary, and a way-marked path heads west towards the village of Otañes. The route climbs through eucalyptus groves, then drops to sea level where sandstone cliffs have been sculpted into blow-holes. Allow ninety minutes there and back, wear shoes with grip – the descent is slippery after rain – and take a jacket even in July; the Atlantic breeze can flip from balmy to brisk within minutes. Cyclists can follow the disused railway line inland to the medieval town of San Vicente de la Barquera, mostly flat and traffic-free, though you’ll need to return by the same route unless you’ve left a second car there.

Back in town, the steep lanes double as a fitness track. The gradient between the port and the university is 1:6; pushchairs are best left at the hotel and grandparents should budget extra time. The effort is rewarded by sudden vistas: look one way and you see apple-green meadows grazed by tan-coloured cows; swivel 180 degrees and the horizon is nothing but ocean, with the occasional cargo ship sliding towards Santander.

When to come, where to sleep, what to pay

Spring and early autumn give you Gaudí without the queues and beaches without windbreak warfare. July and August are pleasant temperature-wise – mid-twenties most days – but car-parking turns into a slow-motion treasure hunt. Arrive before 11:00 or use the signed field on the southern approach road (€1.50 per hour, card only). Winter is mild by British standards – rarely below 6 °C – yet shorter days mean the monuments close at 17:00 and half the restaurants shut on weekday evenings.

Accommodation clusters in three price bands. At the top end the ABBA Golf sits above the town with outdoor pool and green fees for the adjacent eighteen-hole course (doubles from €110). Mid-range choice is the Hotel Esmeralda, a converted indiano mansion two streets behind the beach (doubles €70–90, breakfast extra). Budget travellers can try the newly opened municipal albergue in a restored grain warehouse – bunk beds €18, kitchen available, closed December–February.

Eating is straightforward and cheaper than the Costa Brava. A three-course menú del día in the old town costs €12–14 and usually includes local cider poured from a height to aerate it. Restaurants add a 10 % service charge only if stated on the menu; tipping an extra euro or two for good service is appreciated but not expected.

Leaving the borrowed grandeur behind

Comillas will never be large, and that is precisely its limit and its lure. Come for half a day and you can tick off a Gaudí, a palace and a decent plate of squid; stay overnight and you notice the details – the way the church bell echoes across the bay at dusk, how the cemetery’s broken Gothic arch frames the evening star, the smell of wet rope when the fishing fleet unloads at dawn. The town borrowed Barcelona’s architect for a season, then got on with the business of mending nets and hauling boats. That mixture of brief imperial fantasy and stubborn maritime routine is what lingers after the sunflower tiles have faded from view.