A stroll along Santillana's cobbled main street, past solemn nobles' houses from the 15th to 18th centuries, leads you to this lovely 12th-century Romanesque ex-monastery. The big drawcard is the cloister, a formidable storehouse of Romanesque handiwork, with the capitals of its columns carved into a huge variety of figures. The monastery originally grew up around the relics of Santa Juliana, a 3rd-century Christian martyr from Turkey (and the real source of the name Santillana), whose sepulchre stands in the centre of the church.
