![\"Indoor](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/\/505328d2-1342-40d8-9a1e-489f78b4dbd6.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
The indoor swimming pool at the Helguera Palacio<\/p>\n
Green Spain\u2019s noble roots<\/p>\n
Ironically, given its under-the-radar status, this was the site of my first full-on experience of Spain and Spanishness. In Santander I once spent a crazy summer as a backpacking student, falling in with a fast crowd of posh kids from Madrid. We\u2019d roar around town at night in someone\u2019s papa\u2019s flashy sports car, frequenting the discotecas and feasting on fresh seafood in neon-lit restaurants on the harbourside.<\/p>\n
My recent, long-delayed return to Cantabria would be a rather more sedate affair. Helguera Palacio stands in the foothills of the Pasiego valleys, a four-square Renaissance mansion built in stone the colour of caf\u00e9 con leche, with arched porticoes and an ornate coat of arms affixed to its grand fa\u00e7ade. In the formal gardens surrounding the house, gravel paths meander between banks of hydrangeas and fountains trickling into moss-covered basins. The Palacio was originally built in the 17th century as the country seat of the Count of Santa Ana, right-hand man to the viceroy of colonial Peru. After passing through the hands of various well-to-do owners it was bought by the Madrid-based designer Malales Mart\u00ednez Canut and her husband, Jos\u00e9 Antonio Revuelta, who have spent \u00a31.7 million converting the house into a sumptuous 11-room hotel. (It opened in 2021.) <\/p>\n
\u2022 Explore our full guide to <\/b>Spain<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n Its unashamedly maximalist interiors, combining rich fabrics, classical statuary and antique furniture (much of which turns out to be for sale) breathe an air rather more of an English country manor than a Spanish hacienda. My Duke of Wellington suite rejoiced in Venetian chandeliers, a canopy bed and a gold-framed portrait of the great man himself. Even the indoor swimming pool had a fireplace, lit on chilly winter evenings \u2014 a detail I couldn\u2019t recall having seen in a hotel before. My first-night dinner at the Palacio\u2019s in-house restaurant Trastamara combined local ingredients with touches of Latin America, in such dishes as fresh crab ravioli with a creamy huancaina potato sauce. (The chef, Renzo Orbegoso, appropriately enough, hails from Peru.) I\u2019d always believed that Cantabria was the only Spanish region producing none of its own wine \u2014 so a bottle of Mar de Fondo, an aromatic white made from a blend of Galician, Basque and German grape varieties, brought me properly up to speed. <\/p>\n The three-Michelin-starred Cenador de Amos<\/p>\n .<\/p>\n A taste of the region<\/p>\n If the Palacio is one half of Cantabria\u2019s newest hospitality power couple, the other is Cenador de Amos, without doubt the region\u2019s finest restaurant and, since 2020, one of 16 in Spain with a trio of Michelin stars. <\/b>I made the 20-minute journey there for a lavish Sunday lunch courtesy of the chef Jesus Sanchez, who specialises in \u201cinterpretations\u201d of traditional Cantabrian dishes executed with the precision and refinement of a pastry chef. <\/p>\n \u2022 17 of the best hotels in San Sebastian for your next city break<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n The restaurant occupied an 18th-century mansion at the centre of the sleepy Villaverde de Pontones (population about 300), a palimpsest of traditional Cantabrian architecture with art deco modernista and contemporary additions. Similarly, the dishes of Sanchez\u2019s signature desde la raiz (\u201cfrom the roots\u201d) menu had soul and heft as well as surface sparkle. His version of salpicon, a popular shellfish salad, was rendered as a delicate miniature in pointillist dots of colour. A tranche of hake came with the two great sauces of northern Spain: pil pil (an emulsion) and a salsa verde made even more vibrantly green with lettuce and seaweed. A pigeon breast was cooked with cacao nibs and pine nuts. This was 21st-century high-tech cuisine, exquisite yet without pretension, and that long lunch was among the best I could remember from three decades of eating in Spain\u2019s most celebrated restaurants. <\/p>\n Afterwards I sat in the garden over coffee and petits fours with Marian Mart\u00ednez, director of Cenador de Amos (and wife of the chef). A card-carrying Cantabrian, Mart\u00ednez was happy to give me her tips for the cr\u00e8me de la cr\u00e8me of her home region. For culture, the Centro Botin, poised at the edge of Santander harbour like a child\u2019s vision of an alien spacecraft, was a no-brainer, as was El Capricho in the seaside town of Comillas, a whimsical pavilion in multicoloured fantasy style and one of Antoni Gaud\u00ed\u2019s few commissions outside his native Catalonia. Cantabria\u2019s unique heritage of paleolithic cave art, of which Altamira (dating from 35,000-10,000BC) is often said to be the Sistine Chapel, extends to some 60 sites across the region. <\/p>\n Merluza en Salsa Verde at Cenador de Amos<\/p>\n .<\/p>\n Cantabria\u2019s natural larder<\/p>\n In terms of edibles I should stock up on La Lleldiria cow\u2019s milk cheese and sobao pasiego, a miniature sponge cake made with the luscious butter of the Pasiego valleys. But if there was one Cantabrian product I shouldn\u2019t miss on any account it was the Santo\u00f1a anchovy. If you\u2019re a fan of this paragon of salty, juicy fishiness laced with umami, the town of Santo\u00f1a \u2014 up on the coast about 40 minutes\u2019 drive from Helguera Palacio \u2014 is nothing less than a pilgrimage site. <\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/\/44ad5a77-3019-48c8-8a1f-b7cd0f56a04b.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/\/5d67b0a3-9559-45d8-b575-ce8e5423baf0.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
![\"Frieze](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/\/8e777e24-90c7-436f-9e2c-f219aea0bd59.jpg\")
<\/p>\n