Getting Behind…

So clearly I've been getting behind in my blogging. Somewhere after San Sebastián I lost the plot and got consumed by driving and getting to the  next place. Here are some highlights:

Biarritz

After San Seb. we headed to Biarritz to drop our friends to the airport and we stayed the night.

Stunning location on the Basque Coast. Check. Beautiful young people sunning themselves. Check. Snotty French waiters and mediocre food. Check. Check. All the makings of the perfect holiday resort. It is beautiful, no doubt but I'd be hard pressed to spend a week here I think.  We did have some amazing mussels in blue cheese sauce that were to die for. They were really small and tender but overall the food here was nothing like we'd been eating in Spain and was quite a bit more expensive.

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Further down the coast toward Spain, the town of Saint Jean de Luz is  a much nicer town with a more homey feeling. The beach front isn't as  impressive but I enjoyed the town itself more with its little shops and  bakeries.  I have always wanted to go here because when I was a child my  family stayed in the next town on the Spanish side - Hondarribia and we  could see Saint Jean from there. As a young child I always found it amazing that you could look across the water and see another country.

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Bilbao once more

I have some family friends/relatives in Bilbao so we met them for  lunch. Despite their best efforts to direct us to their home via an exit  name that did not exist, we inevitably ended up lost in Bilbao. After  several attempts to locate each other via telephone they eventually  ended up coming to find us so that we could follow them to their  apartment where we could eat lunch. Bilbao sits in kind of a hole in the  landscape and they live at the top so the view from there was quite  something. We could see all of Bilbao and even the Guggenheim from their  balcony.  The 'small' lunch as they called it consisted of ham,  chorizo, ensaladilla de Rusia - a kind of potato salad and asparagus.  Then for the second course, yes, I did say second course, they provided  some delicious meatballs called albondigas in a very rich tasty sauce.   This was followed by cheese of the Idiazabal variety which is typical of  the Basque country. To paraphrase Van Morrison….now the eating has  begun.

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Gijon We said our goodbyes and headed to Gijón - a beach town on the  Cantabrian Coast in Asturias. It was lovely to have some fresh air after  all that driving so we walked up and down the beach front and had a  small dish of clams before taking a pretty early night.

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Galicia I am a 'gallega' by birth so we were returning to my homeland. Galicia is a very green and very beautiful, not very industrialized. Much of it lies on the sea and the reputation for quality products from both land and sea is known throughout Spain.

We were ultimately heading to Grandma's house in Noceda a small village near Lugo but with a stop in Santiago de Compostela.

We stopped about noon at a beach called Praia os Catedreis or Cathedral Beach which is known for its spectacular formations. Sadly the tide was in and we didn't get the full effect but beautiful it was just the same.

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Lost Once More…Santiago

Our plan was to have lunch with some cousins of mine in Santiago and then head to Grandmas. But once again, a combination of lack of local knowledge, confused instructions and communication issues resulted in us being lost at our destination and spending about an hour trying to find where we were going to go. Super G was quite frightened at one point as we navigated the small streets of Santiago with me driving, speaking in Spanish to my cousin on the speaker phone both of us shouting at each other which is more the Spanish way of discussion.

Eventually I gave up with trying to find our destination and we simply abandoned our car in the nearest public car park and took a taxi to the restaurant we were to meet them at.  This meal was so simple, but so enjoyable.

Grilled Octopus (Pulpo) Salad Red Peppers stuffed with Cod Pimientos del Padrón, a local specialty - small green peppers that are fried. It is somewhat of a lottery as some are extremely hot, others are not. But both are delicious. Tortilla Española - until this point I had been very disappointed with the tortillas we'd had in other places. This is a dish that my mother makes all the time and sorry but the others had not been up to scratch. But this one was more like the one I remember and was delicious. The flavour of the eggs was incredible and the colour was really rich and yellow, almost orange.

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At this point, my cousins were ordering dessert, which was really quite unbelievable, but despite our protests out came a dessert plate with various things to try including delicious strawberries covered in chocolate as well as chestnuts in chocolate and creme caramel.

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Paseo Por Santiago

Some of you may have heard of the Camino de Santiago which is a religious pilgrimage to the tomb of St. James the Apostle who is believed to be buried at Santiago. It is said that the remains of the saint revealed themselves in a field of stars or Campo do Stella from which comes the name Compostela. This has been a route for pilgrims since at least the 13th Century.  This year is a Jacobean Year or Año Santo which occurs in every year that St. James Day, the 25th of July falls on a Sunday. The next one will be in 2021.  So many more pilgrims will come this year than in others.

My youngest cousin Faia was an excellent tour guide deftly walking straight past any signs that said 'prohibido' or 'guests only' to show us lots of secret corners of Santiago - a truly magical city. She also showed us the 'insider tricks' like lying on the ground in front of the Cathedral and looking it upside down, which is what locals do.

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Guggenheim & Ysios – Architour

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I've wanted to come to the Guggenheim for about 10 years now. Although I've been in Spain quite a few times in that period, for whatever reason, it has not worked out so I'm thrilled that we are finally going.We had a pretty incredible morning already, setting off from Marqués de Riscal and visiting the nearby Ysios winery at La Guardia, which was designed by Calatrava. This place was designed to be photographed. With the incredible pyrenees as the backdrop, the undulating roof echoes their curves. There was not a single person there when we visited and we had a lovely few minutes on our own snapping pics and admiring. A bus tour arrived 5 minutes later so we moved on but I will really remember this special moment in La Rioja.

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The drive from Marques de Riscal to Bilbao is about 1.5 hours. We went as far as Vittoria-Gasteiz on lesser national routes which I'm so glad of - we really got to see some of the beautiful Rioja countryside and I'm inspired to visit here again with more time.

Now we focussed on the point of our journey - 'the Gugg'.  Arriving in Bilbao was pretty easy, the museum is well sign-posted. Tip - if you can, park across the river from the Guggenheim. You get a beautiful view from here and can photograph it before walking over the bridge to get a closer look.  The sunlight on the fish scales dances and changes as you move and as the sun moves.

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Again, what can I really say on this one? It's as incredible as I remember from photos but I'm pinching myself because I can't believe I'm actually here. Every way you look at the building you get a different view or angle. I think you could see it forever and see something new every time.

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We walk around to look at 'El Perrito', Jeff Koon's dog sculpture which is hilarious and cute.

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Inside, I wonder if anyone looks at the art, the building is so incredible. It's covered in glass on one side so you get a beautiful view of the river from inside.  The audio guide tells me that the central atrium is the heart of the building and that the adjacent galleries are the veins. All lead back to the heart so you visit here several times during your visit.

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Outside the public art installations are wonderful and seem to  complement this already imposing building perfectly.  I love the spider  and the bullrushes which look like Koons as well.

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The day is really hot and it's just lovely to walk around and look at this thing, this shining tower in the sun.

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