Day 13 San Sebastian

Dropped my computer and broke it. Too hard to type on this cell phone. No more blogging. Planning on being home Thursday.

Day 12 San Sebastian, Bilboa

Guggenheim

Left the apartment at 8:30 for a leisurely Sunday morning drive over to Bilboa primarily to see the Guggenheim Museum. Got there just after 10, parked in an adjacent lot and spent 45 minutes trying to find the damn entrance. The Guggenheim is a magnificent building - that's about the best I can say. I cannot imagine what's going through the artists minds when they're creating this "Art". We didn't stay very long. The highlight for me was the giant cat (or maybe it was a dog) outside the building. It was made up entirely with flowers, all pansies. Afterwards we walked around town a bit, most of the shops were closed. I guess it was around one when we headed back to San Sebastian. We had hoped to go back by way of the coastal road, but a lack of planning and communication lead to some confusion (on my part of course), and we ended up going straight back to the apartment. Decided to do the coast drive on Tuesday.

Guggenheim Cat

Towards evening we walked down the river through the Gros section and over to Old Town. Spent a few hours there wandering around and watching the kids play while we sat at a cafe. Had a few Pintxos and a more than a few wines before going back to the apartment.

Day 11 San Sebastin

It was a pleasant two and a half hour drive over to San Sebastian on the Atlantic coast. The Pyrenees go all the way to San Sebastian and although they're not as big as they are midway between coasts, they're still absolutely beautiful and interesting. The road was wide and the drive was easy and relaxing. Somehow we missed out on the lively discussions...until we got to San Sebastian.

Pintxos Bar

San Sebastian's a big town, much bigger than I envisioned. We had trouble finding our apartment, but once we did it was fine. It was a 10 minute walk to the shopping district and a 20 minute walk to Old Town and none of it was uphill. Had a bit of lunch in the shopping district then went back to the apartment to unpack. In the evening we walked back to Old Town to try out their famous tapas. I don't know what Old Town's like during the week, but on Saturday night it's crazy, everybody's out, from little kids to geezers (I know, I know). After stopping at three tapas bars I learned several things. First, boy my posts about the tapas in Jaca and Barcelona were written with zero knowledge about tapas. The stuff they call tapas in Catalan cannot be compared to the ones in Basque country. In Basque country they're called pintxos (PEEN - chohs),  and it's not unusual for a bar to have 40 or 50 different pintxos sitting on the bar. Second, I learned how to order at these bars; First you stand there in front of the pintxos bar looking stupid (not hard to do), and when the bartender says something in Spanish, just nod your head yes and he'll give you a plate. Next, fill your plate with pintxos and stand there looking stupid again and when the bartender speaks to you, just say cerveza or vino and when he gives you a beer or wine, hand him a 20 Euro note and hope you get change back. The third thing I learned is it's considered rude to leave a used napkin on the table or bar, you're suppose to throw them on the floor. I learned this from Rick Steves and verified it by noticing all the crumpled up napkins on the floor. We hit three bars and had 7 pintxos, some were okay, some were excellent and most were unbelievable. They all looked good so it's really hard to pick. The fish ones weren't so good because they got cold sitting on the bar. That was all my tapas (pintxos) lessons for the evening, my mind was exhausted and I'll probably forget by morning anyhow. I can learn this stuff all over again. Getting old is cool, always learning...over and over.

Day 10 Jaca

Jaca's an easy town to fall in love with. Like so many old towns in Europe, the streets are narrow with little if any automobiles so walking is a natural pastime. It's extremely family oriented with kids playing about everywhere. It seemed to me that the fathers are unusually active in the family, especially by giving the little ones a lot of attention. It's not at all unusual to see a Dad pushing a stroller down the street without the Mom anywhere around. I found it easy to relax on a bench or in a cafe and watch the goings-on. Everyone hangs out in town strolling about and stopping to chat with friends or meeting in the cafes for a tapas and a glass of wine.

Paletilla de Ternasco

Okay, here's what we did today. After a typical breakfast of coffee, croissant, and some cheese, we walked across the street to Castle Jaca's Citadel, a huge pentagonal fortress built in the late 16th century that retains each and every one of it's characteristic features; dry moat, bastions, scarps, barracks, tunnels, and a beautiful entrance way with a drawbridge. We were not allowed in unless we took the tour which was only given in Spanish. The tour guide was great, after each stop she would come over to us and try and explain in broken English what we were looking at. Most of what she said we couldn't comprehend but it was nice that she tried. At the end of the tour we could go in the museum that contained 35,000 miniatures of the various militarys throughout history. It even had an exhibit of our Civil War. The whole thing was very well done and enjoyable. Afterwards we went through the process of deciding whether to have a big lunch and light dinner, or little lunch and big dinner. Big lunch won so we managed to find the recommended Restaurante Las 3 Renas. Since we were in the Aragon region of Spain and Aragon is famous for it's lamb (some say the best in the world), we decided to do an Aragonese meal. First came something called Migas del pastor. Best we could tell it was crumbled old bread mixed with olive oil, ham, onions, and maybe some other stuff. It was actually pretty tasty. The main course though was Paletilla de Ternasco - lamb shoulder (pictured above). That was excellent! As you can see from the picture it was a whole shoulder and leg from a very small lamb. It was a lot to eat, but I managed, Sylvia didn't. I don't think I've ever had lamb this good. I highly suggest if anyone gets to the Aragon region of Spain they should try the lamb. I was too stuffed to do much the rest of the afternoon. Around 7 o'clock we went back out to walk, watch, and test the wine. After a half hour of walking we stopped at a tapas bar Sylvia had her eyes on the past few days called Cobarcho. We sat inside and had a glass of wine and waited. About 8 o'clock they started putting tapas on the bar - 16 different ones, each one looking better than the last. They were by far the best tapas I've seen since we've been in Spain. Every one looked delicious and most all contained some kind of fish. Most people would just get one or maybe two and generally didn't eat the bread. Still full from lunch, we had NOTHING. I think I regret it.

Tapas 1 - Upper left - octopus, mussel, squid on each tapa
                Upper right - ricotta type cheese with anchovy
                Center - sardine with anchovy, onion, pepper

Tapas 1

Tapas 2 Upper left - fried sardine

             Lower left - I don't know

             Upper right - mushrooms

             Lower right - tomato, jamon, cheese, black sausage

Tapas 2

Day 9 Jaca

N-260

Today was a five hour drive to the town of Jaca through the most spectacular scenery I have ever seen. The N-260 route through the Pyrenees (a total of 10 hours) is sensory overload. The Alps and the Rockies might have slightly higher peaks, but the Pyrenees have the most varied and beautiful views of any drive I've ever taken. Ninety five percent of the time you're looking at something that defies description. I'm at a loss for adjectives - stunning maybe. It is not an easy drive; it's two lanes and in parts only one and a half so sometimes you have to pull over for cars coming from the other direction. Trucks are another story - in two cases I had to back up at a turn. Fortunately, there's not much traffic and zero traffic lights. There are a 1000 turns; my left arm was tired from steering as my right was constantly shifting, always in third of fourth gear never in fifth. A car with an automatic shift is not the way to go. I would recommend this drive for anyone (note the N-260 road at the bottom of the picture). It's hard to get good pictures since there are not many places to pull over. I would love to do it again only from west to east, with a driver, a good camera and a bottle of scotch. It's a dream ride for motorcyclists and geologists alike.

Dessert

Checked into the Hotel Mur around two o'clock and went up to the room. I had made reservations for only one night, but after seeing the hotel, the room and a little bit of the town, we decided to spend two nights in Jaca. The room was small by American standards, but a more than adequate. The hotel built in 1875 was cute, the amenities up to date and only cost $60 a night with breakfast. A quick walk around town had showed us there was plenty to do, with lots of attractions, restaurants and shops. What impressed me the most was that I saw no English menus and from what I could tell no tourists - similar to Le Seu but a little larger town.

Later we walked around town, went into the Cathedral, looked in the shops, and tried to figure out what restaurant to have dinner. None of the restaurants opened until 8:30, and since we hadn't eaten lunch, we were the first ones in the Meson Serrablo. Started off with some fantastic mushrooms and scrambled eggs, followed by wild boar stew for me, and lamb parts for Sylvia - both were good. Dessert was ice cream with custard and fruit something or other - should have ordered two or three. Tired and stuffed we got back to the room by 10:30 and crashed.

Day 8 La Seu d'Urgell

La Seu d'Urgell

Checked out and did the three hour drive from Girona to La Seu d'Urgell by way of N-260. It's a mostly two lane road that runs right down the center of the Spanish Pyrenees next to France. It was an awesome drive with miles and miles of twisting roads with enough switchbacks to get this old Geezer worn out. Surprisingly there was little traffic which made it all the more pleasant. The Pyrenees are impressive, especially when you're in the middle of them with mountains in every direction. We arrived in downtown La Seu d'Ugrell around one and checked into the smallish Hotel Andria - an okay place right in the middle of the old part of town.

We decided to do a big lunch and something light in the evening. The hotel manager recommended the Cal Teo for a reasonable meal. Walked up the road to Cal Teo where pleasant great waitress sat us and took our order which consisted of...a lot. For starters (see picture) we had FOIE GRAS, two types of pates, cod fish salad with tomatoes, and the ever present tomato bread. There has not been one meal where we weren't given tomato bread whether we wanted it or not. They hardly ever ask, they just bring it and most of the time you get charged a buck or two. Anyhow, this was the first time the toasted bread (and it's always good bread) came with 3 cloves of skin-on garlic, and half of a tomato. I just looked at it like I knew what I was going to do with it. She knew right away I had noooo idea. She politely showed me (with a smile) - cut the garlic in half but don't take the skin off - it keeps your fingers from smelling like garlic. Then rub the garlic all over the bread before squeezing the tomato innards on the bread. Then take the olive oil and drizzle it on top of everything. It's interesting trying to get the tastes to balance. The past week we must have tasted at least ten different tomato breads and each one had it's own characteristics. Neat. It's a lot like bruschetta but with less stuff. The main course consisted of steak frites. The steak was less than a half an inch thick, crusty and rare. No matter how hot I get the grill or pan, I cannot do that. The other thing we ordered was grilled rabbit - Sylvia wan't interested. I thought it was very good. Dessert consisted of flan and quark with honey. Oh!, we also ordered a bottle of wine, and not wanting to seem cheap I ordered a nine dollar bottle. It didn't have a label or even a cork, but it was good. All was good and the waitress was fun. Of course the foie gras made my day. Spent the rest of the day walking around town just checking things out. La Seu is not a particularly touristy sort of town, it's mostly locals just going about their business. The town center is comprised of tiny shops most of which are less that 300-500 square feet. Each block seemed to have several little well stocked grocery stores that specialized in something a little different. That's in addition to all the butcher, cheese, and pastry shops. You can walk the old town in less than two hours and there's lots of interesting things to see.

Partially eaten appetizers

At night we just went across the street to an outdoor cafe and had a few drinks. Agreeing not to have dinner just didn't seem right to me, so I found a pizza joint and got a small one to take back to the room just in case Sylvia got hungry. I'm such a nice guy.

Day 7 Girona, Begur, Palamos

Begur

Got up, had a cup of coffee and drove over to Begur on the Mediterranean coast. It's a little hilltop town of less than 4,000 people that looks over the Med. We parked and walked up to the town center and had the usual cup of coffee at one of the several outdoor cafes. There's an old castle at the very top of a hill that we were not willing to scale, but there were plenty of little shops, cafes, restaurants and hotels to investigate. It's just another centuries old quaint, beautiful little European village.  There's no doubt in my mind that Begur is a magical place that one could easily spend 3 or 4 nights in. I would recommend it to anyone and if I ever came back this way I would strongly consider staying in Begur.

It wasn't lunchtime yet so we drove down the coast to Palamos, a larger fishing town that sits right on the Med. We walked around checking out many of the restaurants before deciding to have lunch at marBionic. We picked it for no apparent reason except it was outside, open, and not crowded (not necessarily good) and served seafood. The restaurants over here are pretty empty at one o'clock and crowded by two. It was hard to decide what to order from an extensive menu so we over ordered. A bottle of local wine, white anchovies in vinegar, octopus, squid plus whatever came with it...terrific, as you can see from the picture. There's was no way we could finish it, but is was really good. Drove back to Girona afterwards and swore we would not eat anything the rest of the day.

Around 8 o'clock I got hungry so for the last time did the walk down the hill, and the climb back up the mountain. Had a few drinks and a little bite to eat. Back at the hotel I got on the internet and made reservations for tomorrow at a hotel in La Seu d'Urgell, a town in the Pyrenees. In fact I made four of them. I guess I was a little impatient with their website. I even ran them out of double rooms. A long telephone conversation with a lady whose English didn't quite mesh with mine corrected this (I hope). We'll find out tomorrow.

Palamos - Anchovies, Octopus, Squid

Day 6 Girona

Cathedral Steps

Not being able to make up our minds where to go today we decided to stay in Girona. It was rather late when we left the hotel, walked down the hill, stopped in a cafe had coffee with a croissant, and got ready to play tourist. However, the only major tourista sites were the Catedral de Girona and the wall around the city. A walk through the town takes you over to the Cathedral. It's a tough 90 steps up to the front door (I don't think they call it the front door, but I don't know what). I have no idea how some people make it to church because it was hard for us. We took the audio tour which took about an hour. It's a pretty impressive church, but the audio tour didn't work very well - you'd press a number and something entirely different would start playing. I would still recommend it if anyone's interested enough to come to Girona. Getting from the cathedral to the wall was again an all uphill walk. There are many walled cities in Europe and this one has been well maintained and exceptional. Took a couple of pictures and decided it was time for lunch. We settled on a little outdoor cafe and had sangria and something else. Well satisfied, we walked BACK up the mountain to the hotel and waited for dinner.

Walked back down the hill around 7:30 and went over to the other end of town and found a little local outdoor cafe. I had a couple of beers, Sylvia had two wines, they gave us olives and chips and the total bill was six dollars...pretty good deal. We weren't very hungry and couldn't decide where we wanted to eat, so we walked back thought town intending to go back to the hotel when hidden away in an alley saw an Irish pub. All of a sudden I got thirsty again and thought it might be a good idea to go in for a Guinness. I was surprised to see a group of people getting together to play Irish music. They turned out to be pretty good so we stayed and had sandwiches and listened for awhile. It was a harder than usual walk back up the mountain. Tomorrow we'll be driving over to the Mediterranean coast to look around and have a little lunch. It should be a lively kind of day.

A little Irish Pub

Day 5 Girona

Left Barcelona this morning. It was a good stay. Took the bus to the airport, picked up the rental car, and headed north from Barcelona up the Mediterranean coast to Girona. This part of the country is called the Costa Brava and is interesting because the whole way up there is the road, next to the road is the railroad, then a path next to the beach , and the beach all the way up the coast. So you can walk, drive, or take a train the entire length of the Costa Brava. It was a pleasant drive since it was Sunday and there was little traffic. We eventually got to Girona, even with GPS finding our hotel - AC Palau de Bellavista - was a bit of a problem, but after a bit of lively discussion we managed to get there. It's a beautiful new and modern hotel and we knew it was little outside of the old town, but we didn't know it was up a mountain. We found out soon enough that it took 15 minutes to get to old town but at least 30 to get back. We made several trips, one to partake in a bit of sangria and a pizza, and the other for dinner. The pizza was uninteresting and the sangria a bit better. However, dinner was another story. It was Sunday night and there's very few restaurants open. We wandered around for quite awhile looking for something interesting before deciding on Restaurant Llevataps. It was before 9 and there weren't many people there so we weren't very sure about it. It turned out was a pretty good pick and enjoyed it a lot. Sylvia ordered a perfectly done duck breast in a sweet potato puree, and I had cod over an apple and black pudding puree - I have no idea what a black pudding is but it was good. The highlight of the dinner was dessert, especially the chocolate truffles with flake salt and olive oil they made to look like fish roe. We also ordered tarte tatin with ice cream. The place was full when we left and headed back up the mountain...well, semi-mountain.  

Day 4 Barcelona

Casa Battlo Living Room

Casa Battlo

Today is National Spain Day. We know this because very early in the morning we heard the crowds gathering at the Placa Catalyuna singing, chanting, and blowing those damn horns they blow at soccer matches - Vuvuzelas I think they're called. Hoards of people we marching down the street carrying Catalan and Spainish flags. Never-the-less, it was a pretty 70 degree day for sightseeing, so we walked up to the Casa Batllo, and another fantastically interesting building by Antoni Gaudi - he did the Basilica we were in yesterday. This is something of a wonderland though. There was hardly a straight line in the building, everything was curves and arches. You were made to feel like you were under the ocean. This is a worthwhile one hour stop.  It's best to look at these pictures because I could not possibly describe it and they're much better than mine. .(http://www.casabatllo.es/en/image-gallery/)

Afterwards we had a little quick lunch at a Mom and Pop tapas bar. It was pretty generic except for the meatballs. If I could ever make meatballs like this I'd never leave home. They were really, really good. We ate quickly because we had tickets for a two o'clock tour through the Palau (palace) de la Musica Catalana. It is considered the most beautiful building in Barcelona. You would certainly not get an argument from me. The tour itself wasn't very interesting, in fact it was rather boring. But it only lasted 45 minutes and it's the only way you can get in. It's well worth visiting. For better pictures try the following link (http://www.palaumusica.cat/en/photo-gallery_23608)

Palau de la Musica Catalana

Later in the evening we walked back to the el Born area for a few drinks while we thought about where we would like to have dinner. After being Tapa-ized the past four days something different seemed necessary.  Walking around we happened upon Dunne's Irish Restaurant and Bar...perfect. Not hesitating, we walked in and I ordered and a Guinness and Irish Stew, and Sylvia decided on vodka and fish and chips. What a great foil for tapas. The fish was excellent and the stew was overloaded with tender and tasty beef. Fattened up, we walked back to the apartment through La Rambla and the mass of partiers. It was enough for the evening as discussions were getting lively.  Tomorrow we head up the coast to Girona for a few days. Girona is the heart of Catalonia and from what I hear it should be interesting.

Day 3 Barcelona

Sylvia's Fish and Ratatouille

Bill's Octopus and Lentils

It's Raining! No matter, it's still fairly warm. Got up this morning and did my daily duty of going out and bringing back croissants, but not before I had a double espresso to jolt the old system into moving about. Today we walked over to the el Born, a bohemian-chic neighborhood comprised of narrow winding streets and alleys full of bars, restaurants and tiny shops. The first place we stumbled into was the Church of Santa Maria del Mar where there was an all violin orchestra performing. We sat in a pew and listened for a bit, then attempted to visit the Picasso museum. Unbelievably the line was 45 minutes long and people were actually standing in the rain waiting for tickets. It was at that point that I decided that I was no longer a Picasso fan - never was actually. Instead we headed over to the Santa Caterina Market and were pleased to see it was a neighborhood kind of market. It had most of the same stuff as La Boqueria Market without the swarm of tourists. Leaving the market it started to rain a bit harder, and since it was after two o'clock lunch was in order. Apparently everyone else had the same idea, however we managed to find a small "Normal" restaurant up a quiet alley called Origens. Sylvia had pumpkin saffron soup and a whole fish dish, and I had an octopus and lentil salad (I'm on a diet).  I entertained myself by drinking several beers (part of my diet) and watched Sylvia wrestle with a whole fish - she also had dessert and I didn't :). Afterwards we walked a bit more, then went back to the apartment to dry off just before the rain stopped. So far el Born is my favorite neighborhood and I would prefer to stay in that vicinity if ever in Barcelona again.

We went back out in the evening to see if we could get into one of the higher recommended tapas bars. Supposedly they're long waiting lines after 9. We checked them out around 8 and the both were packed. Eventually we settled on Restaurant Taller de Tapas. We ordered salt cod and parsley fritters, bellota jamon croquettes, grilled prawns, grilled sausage with white beans, and tomato bread - no dessert, but a bottle of wine.  Overall it was very good. The Spanish wines are very inexpensive and it's rare to find one that costs more than $25, plus they're all very drinkable, but then that just might be me.

Day 2 Barcelona

Jamon at La Boqueria

Okay, so today is suppose to be a major walk so I loaded up on ibuprofen and we headed out down La Rambla which is Barcelona's main boulevard that runs a mile and a half from Avenue Diagonal down to the waterfront. It's Barcelona's answer to le Champs Elysees. Like Elysees it's very touristy but it's a walk you have to do. The most impressive thing was La Boqueria market. One thing we try to do anyplace we visit is to check out the local markets, and La Boqueria didn't disappoint. Of all the markets we've visited in Europe, I don't remember any better than this one, and there is no comparison to anything I've seen in the U.S. It's well worth the trip, and before we leave here I think I'll go again. Instead of walking back up La Rambla, we came back through the Barri Gotic distric which is the oldest part of Barcelona. It's streets are narrow, winding lanes with lots of little classic antique shops, bars, and Roman ruins. You could spend the better part of the day just wandering this area. We did stop in the Cathedral of Barcelona and it's pretty impressive. Seeing as the old knees were getting sore, I requested that we stop for lunch and Sylvia was kind (or thirsty) enough to agree. We managed to find a "Normal" restaurant (non-tapas) near the apartment on Ronda Sant Pere called Cullera de Boix. We had to wait a few minutes until they started serving lunch at one (that's normal), so we had libations while waiting. It was a pleasant day and we sat outside and ordered a pork tenderloin with a creamed red pepper sauce and a squid stuffed with mushrooms served with an ink sauce. Both were terrific, the pork actually tasted like pork and my stuffed squid was great. There was no doubt in my mind it would be light tapas in the evening.

Sagrada Fabilia

After lunch we took a taxi up to the Basilica of the Sagrada Familia, the biggest church I have ever seen and it's not even finished. It's a Gaudi designed church that was started in 1882 and is not expected to be completed for another 30 years - yep, that's a total 132 years. It's an amazing Basilica and worth a trip as it's the number one attraction in Barcelona. We walked back to the Plaza Catalunya area via El Born section of town and decided that tomorrow we would spend more time there. After six hours of steady walking we decided a rest before dinner would be good, so we had a few cocktails in preparation for some kinda-light tapas.

Jamon at Qu Qu

Okay, so we didn't have some kinda-light tapas - it was more than we could eat. The above picture is of the assorted jamon and sausages is ONE of the tapas we had. The restaurant was a Rick Steves recommendation Qu Qu and although he's normally right on, he missed on this one. Tomorrow's another day in Barcelona and for sure it'll be light tapas.

Day 1 Barcelona

It's been quite a while since I've written anything about traveling, so I guess I'd better do this one. Yesterday we left good ol' Solomons Island for northern Spain. Since we're old, retired, lazy and incapable of much planning, the best we could come up with was to leave on October 8 for Barcelona, spend four nights there, then spend a five or six days hanging around the Pyrenees before finishing up in the Basque towns of San Sebastian and Bilboa. We expect to return home after 16 days of doing whatever happens.

Plaza Catalunya

The trip over to Barcelona via Amsterdam was uneventful and after arriving we bus'd it from the airport to the studio apartment we rented right on the Plaza Catalunya. It's just the kind of touristy location I try to avoid. But since we don't know anything about Barcelona we decided to stay there because it's central to a lot of interesting things and convenient for transportation purposes. We arrived around noon, got the keys to the flat, dumped off the bags, and walked 5 or 6 blocks in each direction to get a feel for the neighborhood. Of course we had a little snack - a bottle of wine and 6 or 7 different tapas (or tapai?) in a little cafe down a side street just off the Plaza Catalunya. I was amazed how anyone (me) could take four years of Spanish and not remember anything except "buenos dias". Even when I said that, people would just look at me with a silly grin wondering what geezer tour bus I had just wandered off from.

With little more than a couple of hours of walking about my first impressions are that it's a lot prettier than I thought and the architecture's absolutely amazing - lots of tress and incredibly beautiful ornate buildings. The shopping too was unexpected, all the Louis Vuitton, Tiffany, and Montblanc type stores are here. It's kind of strange though because the people don't dress very fashionably - although how would I know. Surprisingly, Barcelona may have more outdoor cafes than Paris. On some streets the whole block is taken up with these little cafes serving beer, wine, and tapas. It's hard to find what we would consider a "normal" restaurant. This should prove to be one of my favorite things in Spain. On the other end of the spectrum though is the traffic - scooters, bikes, and taxis everywhere. I've noticed that people don't jaywalk very much and I think it's because the taxis are just looking for moving targets and be semi-legal about it. Overall though, Barcelona is a terrific city and I think we're going to enjoy it.