A really nice, 'open' city, sitting facing a bay that is protected by a headland of rocks to the north. In the background are the foothills of the Cantabrian mountains. Across the bay is a spit of sand, and along the north, facing the Atlantic is a bundle of rocks, a scattering of sandy bays, and a lighthouse on a prominence.

All along the northern coast of Cantabria are the foothills of the Picos de Europa covered in lush green, with small valleys funneling into the sea: small inlets where the sea brushes in beside the hills, and, as it retreats, leaves a bank of sand overshadowed by woodland clinging to the steep sides of the hills.

Inlet after inlet cuts the coastline. Here and there are villages, usually set back from the coast behind a rise in the land for protection from the winter winds. Farmers are cutting small patches of grass, behind are wife and children with rakes, raking the new-moan grass into rows, and then into small domes.

Down on the beach another farmer is raking up the seaweed left by the retreating tide and bundling it into a cart. The tractor tows the cart up a perilous track and the seaweed is dumped in giant molehills on the fields as fertilizer. This is then spread slowly with a long-handled rake and a bent back.

Further along the coast is a large valley where the river runs from tiny stream to estuary over the space of half a mile. Set in behind the trees, and in amongst the folds in the rock, are secret houses.