Day 139 : Comillas

 A 1hr 10mins bus ride to the west of Santander lies the town of Comillas. 

The biggest reason why I wanted to come here was because I read about this house that was designed by Gaudí in his early days of his career when he was just about 30 years old, and I wanted to check it out - La Capricho do Gaudí. It was restored in 1989, thus the modern look and feel on the inside. 

The owner of the house was Máximo Díaz de Quijano, and the house was originally known as Villa Quijano. He was a lawyer to the Marquis of the city, and was a big lover of music, even composing some songs. 

Gaudí designed the space taking into consideration the location of the land and where the sun is positioned at different times of the day, as well as including some musical metaphors across the space to reflect the personality of the owner. 

Starting from the master bedroom which is located at the far eastern side of the house and is the 1st room to get the sunlight, it also comes with an outdoor terrace. The magnificent muqarnas ceiling has 88 metal pieces, same number as the number of keys on a piano. 

It then leads into a bathroom which was luxurious for its time. Musical elements are also reflected here in the stained glass windows, with a blackbird perched on an organ and a bee holding a guitar. 

The bathroom is also connected to the study room, which then leads into the living room where guests are entertained. 

The windows on the right are equipped with a system of pulleys and counterweights that act like ringing bells so that on opening and closing them, a musical tinkling sounds, like a chime - all in accordance to the owner's love for music. 

There are also multi-lobed arches on the opposite side of the windows, which are magnificent. They are reminiscent of the mihrabs of Islamic architecture.

There's also a separate section for the dining area. And on the same floor is the Greenhouse, which faces southwards and is also shielded by the “U” formed by the rest of the building, protecting it from the northerly winds. 

The aim was to take advantage of the scarce rays of the Cantabrian winter sun, storing them here as if they were pure gold, and then distribute those rays and the hot air generated to the rest of the rooms. 

The upper floor leads to the Attic, an open-plan space filled with natural light that's achieved thanks to this particular oak wood beam, with a scissor structure.

The attic is used to connect the two service quarters, which were on either side of the floor. I really love this tower, inspired by Persian minarets, the exposed brickwork and the glazed porcelain of Hispano-Arabic architecture. 

The attic is also linked to the ground floor (kitchen and stables) via spiral staircases, another common element in Gaudí’s work, which were highly functional, since the household employees were able to move around the work areas without going through the rooms on the main floor.  

One of the stairways leading to the ground floor is extremely narrow - anyone who is fat would definitely have a problem making his/her way down. 

Even the exterior of the building is very unique. The columns of the portico have work of nature on them with the larks building their nest among palm leaves. The tower's wrought iron is wrapped in the leaves of an everlasting vine. The glazed porcelain has sunflower blossoms on them against a shade of green - another musical metaphor as in Spanish an overture in the treble clef is known as “sun” clef. Or, in this case, “in the sunflower clef”. 

In addition, it has the score on its very walls. The walls have five straight parallel lines of glazed porcelain, designed to look like a pentagram, and the curved wrought iron shapes are supposed to look like quavers floating in the air. 

Máximo took possession of this house on June 30, 1885, when Gaudí was beginning to stand out on the Barcelona architectural scene with some of his most famous projects, such as the Sagrada Familia and the Casa Vicens. 

Unfortunately, Máximo died of cardiac cirrhosis on July 7,1885, 7 days after taking possession of the house, and so didn't get to live very long in the house! 

I next headed to Palacio de Sobrellano. There was a cost to enter the building, but free to move around the exterior and the gardens which was what I did. Some interesting architecture. 

There is also a neo gothic style Chapel that is part of Sobrellano Palace, and is said to had been designed by Joan Martorell, whom apparently was Gaudí's teacher, and where Gaudí got his neo-gothic influence from.  

Opposite the Palace up on that hill used to be a seminary, but is now a university. 

 I headed to the centre, which was rather quiet. But I managed to find a restaurant that was opened to have lunch. 

I ordered one of their menu of the day, which came with a wine.

I thought I was going to be getting a glass but I was given a bottle, which meant I could pour any amount I want, anytime I want during the meal 😱😱😱

I recently heard the people of Spain is known to have a long life... Is wine the secret? 😝

My meal comprised of Starters - Croquettes

That's quite a lot for 1 person! 

And then I ordered prawns for the 2nd dish.

Prawns were super fresh and sweet. 

And ended off with ice cream for dessert. 

Time to quickly head back to the bus stop to take my bus back! 

I didn't even have time to visit the coast of Comillas which looked nice, as I had to catch the bus back. The bus operates very infrequently between Santander and Comillas, and I wasn't intending to miss this bus! I wasn't expecting there to be much in this town, I suppose this will be for another trip! 

When I got back into Santander, there was still light and so I did some additional sightseeing in the city. Came across this special bicycle parking. 

Also walked over to Plaza Porticada for a visit around the square before heading over to the Santander Cathedral - there appears to be 2 different churches in the same building. 

I quickly made my way back to the Accommodation as I needed to get some laundry done. It almost became a nightmare, as the place I was staying in had a "self-service" washing cum dryer machine, which can only be turned on by the reception with a special remote. 

Unfortunately the reception don't operate all hours and although the clothes were set for being dried for 3 hours, the dryer process was stopped by someone in the last hour and the machine can't be turned on as the reception had already left for the day when I realised it was stopped at 10.30pm. 

My clothes were still quite wet and having to leave next day doesn't help 😭 

The nearest laundromat was about 10 mins walk away and closed at 11pm. And so I made haste to get there and quickly put the clothes to dry! Good thing about these dryers are they are completely done in 20 mins! Phew!!!