5 o’clock the alarm played its music and elicited feelings of violence from me – I am not a morning person at the best of times. Our departure routine went well as we padded quietly around the apartment and the common area where I made us a toasted sandwhich to take away and a good morning coffee. We made it to the bus station a 7 minute walk away in good time for the 6am airport bus and sat back to enjoy the ride.
Florence airport is only 20 minutes away and quite small and older style for such a big city. The duty free was a few scantily stocked shops – like 6 in total and the facilities generally run down. Security was very light and I felt we got there too early. We were both quite tired too and I didnt feel up to writing as my eyes were just wanted to close. We were bused onto our Vueling plane and I was thankful to have booked ‘premium’ seats at the front so we had a bit more leg room than the basic. The 2hr flight being budget was non service so it was nice to have our homemade sandwich and juice. The flight path took us along the top coast of Italy, to the bottom coast of Frace and then across the top of Spain. This made for quite interesting scenery and we were able to pick out quite a few of the places we had visited in both this trip and the past. The Mediterranean is such a gorgeous blue in this area, and picturesque framed by snowy mountains in the rear. Once over Spain we could see the Pyrenees’s where the land was very dry and brown with the exception of a few bright blue alpine fed lakes in one section.
Bilbao airport is small, no duty free in the arrivals section but clean and efficient. We bought our bus ticket to San Sebastián for a total of 17 euro and grabbed a very nice snack of toasted jamon and cheese baguette and a drink and boarded the very comfortable coach for the next leg of 1.20hrs. The scenery is hilly and green on very good motorways with a couple of tunnels and a few small non descript but tidy settlements.
The bus dropped us right in the centre of town at a combined train and bus station. The trains are more regional and do not have the best connections to Bilbao according to our research. Noting here too the weather was slightly overcast – but not dull, with tiny patches of blue appearing occasionally and most importantly a refreshing 23 degrees! We almost considered putting a cardigan on LOL. Home according to google was about 13 minutes walk – and a pleasant one along a neat wide paved and tree lined river walkway, over one decorative bridge and then along a wide modern tree lined shopping and business city street to the beach front.
Check in went smoothly and the bounce on the bed revealed a very comfortable mattress on the double bed. It would have been nice to have a king or queen but I’ll take a softer mattress any day over bed size. The apartment looks like the photos and is roomy but it really takes minimalist to new levels – its unpractical, poor design and a bit of a disappointment as far as what we paid for it. Its with Air B&B an I am forming an opinion about these sorts of accommodations – maybe more on that later. Anyway, nothing can be done so we unpacked, made a cuppa (with our procured stash) and settled in. Its just as well we have a stash as there was no welcome pack, or supplies – not even hand soap.
We then headed out to the supermarket not far away to get some breakfast goodies for the next 3 days and wow the produce that is available is mouth watering! The meats and seafood are king here – I didnt have my camera for this short supermarket visit which is a bummer, maybe before we leave I will get another opportunity although we plan to eat out as much as possible here. As is usual when we first arrive we discuss and map out our plans for the next few days and then headed our to old town for an early dinner.
Wow, wow, wow – what a treat we were presented with. Like a kid in a candy shop or more perhaps I felt like I was a participant in a grocery grab and didnt know what to sample first. There is bar, upon bar wall to wall throughout old town. There are few restaurants but the majority of places are bars that serve amazing Pintxos- from snacks with skewers, toothpicks or on bread, mini shot glasses, sea urchin or other seafood in their shells, or little bowls – to the larger racion plates you can order. It is recommended that you try a couple of things at one place and move on to another and do a crawl as each will have their own specialty. We only could do two places as we were tempted too much by each ones selection.
Our host had given us a sheet with recommended places and we intended on going there but found our noses and the crowds were good enough guide to which were good places. In particular I would do a scout and see whether there were things we thought would appeal. Seafood is king here in San Sebastián with octopus being a key ingredient along with the salted cod they call bacalla. It is soaked to remove the salt and rehydrate a bit – although its not totally hard dried out, and then serve it in a multitude of ways from grilling or poaching, with pimento, battering and frying, mixing with olive oil and garlic into a mousse, or slicing and serving on bread with condiments. My first sample was served sliced thinly on top of slow caramelised sweet onions. It is really lovely – tender and delicate and not salty. Another specialty here is the jamon, as it is grown up in this region and fresh acorn fed pork. We tried some of the later and it was absolutely delicious – just slow cooked with a crispy top. I swung into local style and sampled the sangria which is very pleasant – its not Verns cup of tea but he enjoyed a local beer and tells me it was nice.
At the second restaurant we sat next to and started talking to a Danish man and his family. It was a bit funny as he had a little sea urchin he was eating and I happened to ask if it was nice and he promptly found a clean skewer and gave me some! They had creamed it in a sauce and it was nice – but I prefer it raw and straight up. We then starting chatting and he recommended the Foie which is just lightly pan fried. I went to the bar to hunt our plate and Vern continued to chat to him. When I got back the Danes were gone and Vern was happily drinking a whole new bottle of beer they had gifted him. What nice people; he was widely travelled and had spent a bit of time in Australia for work with his own business which designed the sequences and electronic controls for water fountains.
After we could eat no more we headed home to bed to find that our apartment was actually very noisy like some reviewers had said. We booked knowing this and had our ear plugs but were surprised at how bad it was. We also found there was no cooling other than windows open which is of course counter productive when you have a noise issue. No worries, we are having a quiet day tomorrow so can sleep in and take it easy.
Travels with Valrock 