Laredo

Laredo sits in what was once the territory of the Cantabrian Conisci people, who occupied both banks of the River Asón. The first written record of the town dates to 968, citing its existence as a fishing settlement as far back as 757. A 1068 document from the Monastery of Santa María del Puerto de Santoña also references properties belonging to the church of San Martín de Laredo.

The town's rise to prominence began in 1200, when King Alfonso VIII signed a royal charter in Belorado granting Laredo the status of a royal town with its own jurisdiction. The charter fixed its boundaries along the coast between the mouths of the Asón and the Agüera rivers, extending inland to Ampuero. Growth followed quickly: the population spread between the church of Santa María de la Asunción and the Bario stream, protected by walls whose remains still stand, and organised into a grid of streets divided into three main east-west lanes and several north-south routes.

Laredo's sailors took part in the conquest of Seville in 1248, an event recorded on the town's coat of arms, and the town was celebrated in Alfonso X's Cantigas de Santa María. Membership of the Brotherhood of Coastal Towns of Castile with Vitoria from 1295 strengthened its commercial reach across the Cantabrian coast. By the 15th century, Laredo was a busy port backed by the Catholic Monarchs.

Queen Isabella farewelled her daughter Juana I here as she sailed to marry Philip the Handsome. Charles I arrived in 1556 to begin his journey to the monastery of Yuste, and Philip II disembarked on 29 August 1559 after five years abroad. In 1629, Laredo became capital of the Corregimiento of the Four Coastal Towns, covering present-day Cantabria, cementing its position as the most important and extensive council in the territory.

From this era survives the Arca de las Tres Llaves, the strongbox where official documents were kept.

Laredo has two officially listed cultural assets in Cantabria.

The Church of Santa María de la Asunción stands at the top of the Puebla Vieja and has held national historic-artistic monument status since 1931. It is considered one of the most significant Gothic buildings in Cantabria, built in the style of Cistercian abbeys such as Pontigny. Construction began around 1200, probably on the site of an earlier church dedicated to the Virgen de Belén. The original structure had three naves; by the end of the Middle Ages a fourth was added. Further work in the 16th century brought a porch and several Renaissance chapels, among them those of San José, the Virgen del Carmen, and the Escalante chapel, which contains an important triptych of the Virgen de los Desconsolados and portraits of two members of the Escalante family. The tower was built in the 17th century, and the sacristy was added later alongside the apse.

The Puebla Vieja quarter itself, laid out under Alfonso VIII's original charter, preserves the medieval street plan across six lanes: Rúa Mayor, San Marcial, and Santa María running north–south; San Martín, Rúa de en Medio, and Rúa Ruayusera running east–west. Within this area stand a number of notable townhouses and palaces, including the Casa de Zarauz, the Casa de los Peregrines, the mid-17th-century Casa de los Villota with its Herreran-style cloister, and the houses of Hernando de Alvarado, the Gutiérrez Rada family, and Diego Cacho. Religious buildings include the 16th-century church of San Francisco, now a Trinitarian convent, and the Romanesque Santa Catalina, formerly a Benedictine monastery.

Sections of the medieval walls survive, including a tower behind the San Francisco convent and several historic gateways: the Puerta de Santa María, the Puerta del Merenillo or San Marcial, and the Arco de San Lorenzo, known as the Puerta de Bilbao. The 17th-century town hall is a two-storey ashlar stone building.

Beneath the Atalaya headland runs the Túnel de la Atalaya, built in 1863 to provide access to a harbour project that was ultimately destroyed by storms before completion. The tunnel is 221 metres long and exits at the Mirador del Abra, a viewpoint integrated into the natural landscape with views along the Laredo coastline.