Comillas

This astounding pocket of Catalan Art Nouveau architecture in the green hills of Cantabria will make you rub your eyes in disbelief. Why is it here? The Marqués de Comillas, a Catalan named Antonio López y López (1817-83), whose daughter Isabel married Gaudí's patron Eusebi Güell, was the wealthiest and most influential shipping magnate of his time, and a fervent patron of the arts. López encouraged the great Moderniste architects to use his native village as a laboratory. Antonio Gaudí's 1883-89 green-and-yellow-tile villa, El Capricho (a direct cousin of his Casa Vicens in Barcelona), is the town's main Moderniste attraction. The town cemetery is filled with Art Nouveau markers and monuments, most notably an immense angel by eminent Catalan sculptor Josep Llimona

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