This is a fantastic museum with exhibitions on the Cave of Altamira and Paleolithic Cave Art of Northern Spain. The museum also covers human evolution, stone age societies as well as the scientific study of prehistory. There’s English as well as Spanish labels and descriptions, but not for every exhibit. Anything really important will have both though. The finest exhibition in the museum is the replica cave and cave art, which sadly can no longer be visited for conservation reasons. The curators have done a superb job of recreating the sealed off caves. Totally worth the entrance fee.

The discovery of the Altamira Caves is credited to Marcelino Sanz de Sautuola in 1879, but in actual fact, his 8-year-old daughter, Maria first noticed that the cave ceilings were covered with images of bison. Here, the permanent exhibition “Times of Altamira" showcases prehistoric life in the Cantabria region from art, culture, living conditions, hunting methods and more. There are some explanations in both Spanish and English, but most are without. At the time I went, some of my questions were answered by the museum attendant. At the other end of the museum is a screening room that leads to the renowned Cave and Palaeolithic Art reproductions.

Museum section is good, interesting, has many interesting information panels and artefacts. The problem, for me was the guided tour in the cave. As of my visit, (August 2023), you could only visit the cave with a guided tour. So we took one, but instantly regretted it. The guide was extremely rude and kept shouting at us for no particular reason. 2. I can understand spanish and talk it fluently, so I understood, but this guide spoke absolutely no english. We felt like we were paying the lady to shout at us. Thoroughly unpleasant. It's a real shame that that ruined our experience as the cave and museum were both really impressive and beautiful. The museum building itself was striking. So, to balance it out, I'm rating Altamira three stars.