Sunday, March 11, 2012 – We are off to San Sebastian – on the northeast coast slightly into Spain from the French border. Our drive is just over 620 km long, basically taking us ¾ of the way across the country. The first hour we backtrack out of the mountains and hills, and we see this cool place that Canadians may notice (although we did not stop to learn about it)
to Ponteferra where the valleys open up and widen. At one point we reached 1220 m before descending to drive along about 700 m for a good portion of the rest of the drive. There are all sorts of routes to take to get where we want to, but we choose the fastest with tolls. Not all the autoroutes are tolls, and we’re not sure how they decide which of the many are and are not. On our travels today we really get a sense of the line “the rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain” as we have seen from west of Madrid to the north and now to the east there is a very large plain in Spain which reminded us somewhat of the prairies or US mid-west. As we drive east we can see the northern mountains that seem to separate the plain from the coast.
Our route takes us due east where we see many signs pointing to the El Camino de Santiago, the pilgrimage route people would take to walk/drive to the Cathedral, several hundred km west. That route is long, starting in St. Jean, France south through the Pyrennes, heading west over the plateau and then into Santiago. We drove east until Burgos, then we began our diagonal north. We see many wind turbines along the way and in some places the valley is continually dotted with them. At our lunch stop in Burgos, the wind blew briskly – confirming why so many turbines were in this area.
Once we drove past Vitoria-Gasteiz, the surroundings changed to very mountainous with the road snaking its way through the valley. We traveled through several tunnels, some over 3km. It was hard to believe that we were so close to the Gulf of Gascogne with how mountainous it was surrounding the roadway.
Finding our apt is relatively easy, however, it is located in a no vehicle zone. After contacting the owner, who didn’t speak any English, and through a couple of phone calls we figured out he wasn’t going to be available for an hour, so we found a parking spot nearby to wait. Like all Spanish cities we’ve been in, parking is a premium. Lots of apartment buildings, but many do not having parking.
We decided to walk around to find the actual apt building. We believed we had found it. Our directions had the English name, Santa Maria while the Spanish street sign said Calle Magdalena. An hour later, Aitol met us in front of the apt and we unloaded our stuff. Using our trusty translator app, T was able to find out pertinent info needed for the week (ie. WiFi spots, good cafes, and a good restaurant to try for dinner as long as we were willing to wait until after 9PM or so to eat).
Our apt is in the old part of this suburb of San Sebastian and thus it is old – at least a hundred years old, judging by the infrastructure of the building, and the worn staircase. It reminded us of our building in Lisbon. We hadn’t been in the apt for an hour when we blew the breaker. It was fairly dark in the apt. M went in search of his headlamp he keeps in our emergency kit. Searching all over the apt, in closets and behind cupboards, he finally located the circuit breakers behind a painting. The problem is the apt has no central heating, just a plug-in radiant heater to heat the whole place. So, when we wanted to use the oven, the breaker blew. Ok. It’s going to be like last week when we had to monitor appliance usage to avoid having to continually venture to the breaker box. M found another spot for the painting for the week.
T whipped up dinner, and M checked out the TV. We have no English channels this week, only Spanish. So tonight we watch one of our movies and learned about the life of Mohammed Ali.
Monday, March 12, 2012 – We are in the town Errenteria, located up the river from San Sebastian. Today we enjoyed getting to know the neighborhood where we will spend the week. M and T are out and about around 9:30 to check out a coffee spot. We have come to enjoy our morning jaunts to various spots, they are a great place to get a glimpse of life wherever we are. Today’s place has a great bakery as well, so we decide to have a treat to go with our café con leche. (coffee with steamed milk), similar to a latte but with no foam.
After our coffee, we walk along the pedestrian only streets and notice they are teaming with people out and about doing their morning errands, buying fresh bread and of course having coffee. Near our apt there are enough cafes that we can visit a different one every morning. Later in the morning we go further afield and come across a fresh meat and fruit market place. There are numerous small lady shops beckoning T to come inside. We purchased a few things at the market place and then we found a grocery store about 5 min from our accommodation for some more supplies.
After lunch, we found that the freezer wasn’t working on our fridge, so the Magnum ice-cream bars we bought were not going to last, and neither were the frozen peas… So, we ‘forced ourselves to eat all the bars that should have lasted for several days’. You gotta do what you gotta do! We contacted our landlord, he came by, and was going to contact a technician. While J was working on school stuff, we went for a walk along the river on a great pathway. The shallow water was full of fish swimming in schools. It was neat to watch them.
Late in the afternoon we found a WiFi café where we had refreshments and we played a few games of checkers while waiting for M to finish his Internet searches. The music in the café/bar was fabulous, so we ended up spending a couple of hours there.
Tuesday, March 13, 2012 – We experienced the morning town life while having coffee at a different café and stopped to pick up a fresh baguette before heading back to make breakfast. Later in the morning we went in search of clam chowder ingredients and managed to find most things for it. T prepped the soup before we all went out for a walk. By now it is around 2 and the town is very quiet. It is siesta time, between 1:30 and 4:30, so the shops are closed down.
We decide to go walking in the opposite direction from yesterday, yet again, along the river. It is a beautiful day, sun shining and about 19 C. The walkways here are beautiful. Since most people live in apartments their green spaces are the parks. There are lots of places for people to sit down and enjoy the views. We walk for about an hour passing many people out walking.
Once back at the apt, the soup is finished. T decided to go check out a couple of the shops while the boys work on a couple of science experiments. While out T finds this store which is somewhat a reminder of shopping at home.
We enjoy a “taste of home” dinner. After dinner M and T go out for a coffee and a walk, and again noticed the bustle of the neighborhood, but come 8 o’clock, the cafes and shops closed, the place became quiet once again. It seems that after 5ish everyone comes out in this town and chats, has coffee, or shops until about 8. We conclude that as they have their large meal during siesta they likely use this time to visit and then have a light meal later on, very different than at home.
Wednesday, March 14, 2012 – We are off to Bilbao today, about 90 km east of San Sebastian. Our “Wonders of the World” book at home showed the Guggenheim Museum in this city, so we had to go check it out. Our drive takes us along AP-8 a toll road along the outskirts of San Sebastian, which is on the Bay of Biscayne to arrive in Bilbao about an hour later. It’s amazing at the number of apt complexes. Actually it appears that unless its rural, people do not live in individual homes.
We notice that this area of Spain is much more populated than we thought we would find. We see from the road signs that in Errenteria we are only about 10 km from the French border. The highway that we are traveling on is the main one leading into France up near the west coast to Bordeaux and beyond. There are a number of transport trucks heading in each direction. Along this corridor there is quite a bit of industry. Perhaps it’s due to the close proximity to France, but likely also to do with the natural resources of mining, transportation and forestry. Later as we read about this Basque region we understand that it has been industrious for a long time. We only get a glimpse of the coast, once on our drive on this freeway.
Arriving in Bilbao, we are again surprised at the size of this city. There are 500 000 people who live in this biggest city of the Basque region. There is a mix of old and new architecture. We are impressed with the beauty. Finding the Guggenheim museum is easy. We also find a parking spot easily. All we need to do is see if we can find the parking payment terminal, since we checked cars around and some had passes on the dash, while others had what appeared to be parking tickets encased in plastic under a wiper. The machine was only in Spanish and Basque known as Euskara, but we did manage to figure out how to operate it.
The architecture of this museum, designed by an American, Frank Gerhy is amazing. As J said, it’s like we don’t even have to go inside – this building is a work of art all by itself. He was so right – probably one of the amazing modern designed buildings we have ever seen – Phenomenal! We walked around the building to appreciate its various facets and dimensions. Later we actually watched a video presentation on the design process and were fascinated. Originally this was industrial land no longer used, so what an awesome addition to the city. We also wonder what made them put such a museum in this city.
The museum interior is wonderful as well, many niches, natural light and different levels. It is a very large facility. The collection is contemporary art, some we enjoyed and some, not so much. We all enjoyed Richard Serra’s huge steel art pieces we could walk through and experience first hand the effect manipulation of angle can play on one’s mind. We also were very impressed by the “puppy” sculpture at the entrance of the museum. Basically a huge sculpture (42 feet in height) covered in flowers. It was marvelous – men were completing the planting of the flowers within the body while we were there, so we understood the makeup of this art piece. We laughed at the gag how we Goggled the glorious gargantuan Guggenheim gallery, thought is was no gamble when it replaced the galling gamut of former industrial garbage, and almost went gaga gazing upon the glamorous well groomed Guggen Pooch (J has been studying alliterations in poetry).
We also took the time to wander one of the main streets and admired the architecture as well as the some of the shops.
We had to find an Orange store to put some money on our account so we could continue to operate our Iphone while in Spain. We stopped at a bar for some tapas and refreshments. They were very tasty, and then a stop at a gelato shop. While outside the gelato shop waiting for M, we watched the Manchester United Soccer team getting on their bus. Apparently they are playing Bilbao tomorrow evening. There were police vans and cars there managing the crowd that was chanting. Cool to see!
Near this city is the town of Guernica, the town that Franco allowed Hitler to use as target practice in 1937 to test out his new weapons on the Basques that lived here. Franco didn’t have much use for this group of people who were causing him headaches, so felt justified in getting rid of them… Picasso painted the mural depicting the atrocities that happened in Guernica that we went to see in La Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid.
We found out there was an outlet mall nearby, so we drove to check that out. We each found something to our liking. J is beginning to enjoy shopping for himself. Once we returned and M negotiated the many tight turns within the parkade we went to check out the two take-away shops that sell prepared food dishes. We figured it’s a great way to try some of the local cuisine. On the menu tonight, breaded pork cutlets stuffed with cheese and ham, meatballs in a sauce and mixed peas, beans carrots and bacon. The food was very tasty and very reasonably priced! We’ll likely do this again.
Thursday, March 15, 2012 – It’s a typical morning, T and M go out for coffee, then we have breakfast and workout, and J starts homework. Today we decide to hang out, get laundry done, go for a walk. While J and M did science experiments, T went for a pedicure and manicure for the lofty price 20$ Canadian (the price was too good to give up the chance for a little pampering and it was right across from the apt). T did a little shopping. Later we went back to our WiFi spot and spent a couple of hours downloading stuff, sending emails, and enjoying the music. Tonight we watch the Man U versus Bilbao game on TV and are pleased that Bilbao wins (plus J cheers for Man City so Man U losing is a good thing).
Friday, March 16, 2012 – We went for a drive today through the Basque mountains and countryside both in Spain and France, the Pyrenees Atlantiques region. Before we could go on the drive we had to negotiate the turns within the parkade where our car is parked, 5 levels below the street. T walked ahead of the car making sure that on each of the 8 ramps M had to negotiate he had enough room to do so without rubbing the bumper on the concrete walls. There is plenty of evidence of others having done that. While doing this, one of the locals came in driving his car at such a speed that both J and T said “Wow, did you see how fast that car was going around these turns?” amazed he could negotiate the turns so fast. To be fair, his car was smaller and older than ours and he’s had lots more practice.
We left Errenteria intentionally taking a secondary highway to drive south through the valley to Pamplona and then we headed northeast through the mountain pass across the Pyrenees to St. Jean Pied de Port in France. The roads are in great condition; sometimes there were hills, some times extremely twisty with some wicked switchbacks and above all great scenery. We actually went from less than 100m elevation to just under 1100 m at the summit in Spain, before once again descending into France. St. Jean Pied de Port is the town those going on the Camion de Santiago begin their journey. We were surprised at the number of bikers and hikers we saw along the way. The valley we drove up was bordered by hills/mountains lots of trees and there were lots of farms, located on the hillsides. There weren’t the flat pasturelands like we had seen in other places in Spain. Crossing into France is of little notice, as the buildings are similar. We drove over a little bridge in the middle of a town and we were in France. We were curious what the border crossing would have been like in this town before the visa free travel of Schengen. As both sides use the Basque language Euskala, road signs are similar.
Once we reach St. Jean, the valley opened wide and we came across more farms with lots of fuzzy sheep. Shearing time must be near and their coats were really thick and heavy. We also saw signs for ‘route du fromage’ as we made our way through both sheep and cattle farms, although, there were definitely more sheep. The homes on both sides were often white stucco usually 2 stories with red or green shudders (Basque colors) and are well kept. There were all kinds of signs to show where we could by farm fresh cheese. There were many quaint villages we passed through on our rural drive. The colors and architectural style reminded of houses in Switzerland – all they were lacking were the window flowerboxes. As we have seen many similar style houses in mountainous areas across Europe it makes us wonder if people that lived in the mountains with snow found similar designs that worked.
Our destination was to coastal town of St. Jean de Luz in France. In actuality it was about 20 km from where we are staying, but we likely drove 270 km before we reached this place. We found a parking spot and a place to eat. J had a burger while T and M had tartine basque – basically a large toasted piece of bread, with a tomato salsa type sauce, chorizo sausage, melted cheese and a sunny side up egg. We thought we’d be adventuresome continuing to trying the local cuisine, however, both of us decided that this will be the one and only time we’ll be eating this combo!
After lunch we went in search of a shop to buy an authentic Basque beret for M, as he had seen the men wearing them here and had a fancy for one. We also stopped at a bakery and bought some amazing treats that tasted even better than they looked. Boy, that doesn’t happen often! Our drive back didn’t take us long at all, although we did have to go through 2 toll stations, one on each side of the border. We also noticed that gas is at least 10 – 15 cents more per litre in France. T had read that the French do come over to Spain to buy things, and we could see why.
We decided to go to the take out shop again to buy some different prepared food to have in the apt. There aren’t many restaurants around here and we don’t want to have to drive to get to one, as getting out of the garage is not worth the hassle. The people here again don’t go out to dinner until 9 or later, and that doesn’t go over well with J.
Saturday, March 17, 2012 –Happy St. Patrick’s Day – We had forgotten about this until we saw something on the an email about a St. Paddy’s Day deal. Today we decide to enjoy the town we’re staying in, walking amongst the locals in the marketplace as well as grocery store as we prepare for tomorrow’s departure. We are going even further into rural Spain, and it being a Sunday, we are being prepared – like the boy scouts!
We had a wonderful coffee cake with our café leche this morning – these places have such wonderful coffee cakes to chose from and we decided to indulge ourselves this AM. We stopped at the ready made food shop and picked up something for dinner tonight as well as for tomorrow. As our freezer does not work here, we had to find a different method than we have been using to bring our fresh supplies in the car for several hours without spoiling. They really don’t charge that much more than what it would cost to buy it at a grocery store and then have to go home and prepare it. Besides, we’re enjoying trying the different local dishes.
We returned back to the apt to workout, have lunch. J has a science test to do, and we went for another walk along the river pathway system. It is quite warm today, even though it is overcast. We have enjoyed our week in the Basque country, and we have even seen banners that we believe have a political message on it, although their does not appear to be much political action going on. Something is happening around here on the 29th of March… (but we will be in France by then).
We wanted to get a couple of things done on the Net, so we went to our WiFi bar, however, it wasn’t open yet (at 5:15), so we went to another place we knew had WiFi, however, it was dreadfully slow. It wasn’t going to be fast enough to upload J’s assignments, so we finished our coffees and then decided to go back to see if the bar was open. Sure enough, it was and it was full of people, mostly men, watching the soccer game of the day on TV. This was great to get a chance to have another local experience. Now in bars, children can come in as well, so J was right in their watching with the other local fans. It was he who informed us that the team on TV was the local team, Real Sociedad – we didn’t know. We ordered a couple of drinks and while listening to the game, finished our work on-line.
We returned back to the apt by 7:30 and warmed up our dinner. On our way back we again see how the town comes alive in the early evening, the bust times are mid-morning and then from 5 - 8 PM.
It was delicious once again. We finished our packing to get organized for our 10 AM departure. Then we found a tennis match on TV and watched Isner the 11th seed beat the world number 1 Djocovic, a great match and the first time Isner has won a semi-final.
No comments:
Post a Comment