Altamira
UNESCO World Heritage Site (Cave Of Altamira And Palaeolithic Cave Art Of Northern Spain, Inscribed 1985 And Extended 2008), With A Polychrome Ceiling Painted Some 15,000 To 20,000 Years Ago; The Original Is Closed And A Full Scale Replica Is Shown · Santillana del Mar, Cantabria
The most important painted cave in the world, and you almost certainly cannot go into it. Altamira's ceiling of bison, painted around fifteen to twenty thousand years ago and using the natural bulges of the rock to give the animals volume, was found in 1868 and dismissed as a forgery for two decades, largely because nobody believed prehistoric people could paint that well. By the 1970s visitor numbers were destroying it: breath, body heat and mould had begun degrading pigment that had survived twenty millennia, and the cave was closed. What exists now is the Neocueva, a full-scale replica of the painted chamber built from laser survey, inside an excellent national museum on the same hillside. Purists object and they are wrong: the replica is the only honest way to see this, the alternative is losing the original, and the museum around it explains the Palaeolithic better than the cave itself ever could.
Avenida Marcelino Sanz de Sautuola, Santillana del Mar, Cantabria, 39330, Spain
NO OPENING TIME HERE WAS CHECKED. The structure: the museum opens daily except MONDAYS with SEPARATE SUMMER AND WINTER SCHEDULES, a SHORTER SUNDAY, and last admission before closing. THE NEOCUEVA ADMITS TIMED GROUPS of limited size through the day rather than running continuously, so arriving late in the day can mean the museum without the replica. A FREE WINDOW runs on certain afternoons and Sundays. THE ORIGINAL CAVE IS CLOSED. Confirm the Monday closure and the group times.