Imagine a place where you can walk from door to door in the old town lanes and find amazing different combinations of the same core set of good natural ingredients that still manage to tempt you to sample way more than you know you sensibly should. Welcome to San Sebastián or Donastia – world renowned for amazing pintxos – the local word for tapa, and innovative modern Basque Spanish cuisine. This is the very reason I booked 4 nights in this north western corner of Spain and I am not disappointed, in fact it is exceeding my high expectations.
As already mentioned we have had a wonderful but full on time in unseasonably warm temperatures and we are so ready for a rest. This little break here is just the perfect time and place for it and we are relishing the cooler temperatures of around 24 degrees. It actually feels a little cool and we are wondering if we need to layer up on the clothes! All that in mind we slept in till 8:15 before having our healthy breakfast at leisure. Our plan for the day was to rest and catch up on blogs inbetween popping out for lunch and dinner. Vern would do his own a bit of internet time, follow up on job prospects and check out some day trip options whilst we are here with a focus on transport connections.
We thought about hiring a car for a day, but after the Bolzano episode we could not get a guarantee from our travel agent that they would release a car, so we thought that for all the potential time and hassle getting one might be, we would relax and public transport any excursion. I had wanted to visit the town that grows the Espelette chili peppers but its difficult to reach by public transport – a couple of transfers over to the French side, and 3hrs of travel vs. a 1hr trip by car. I will leave that to another trip one day when I come back here or come down from the French side :-). Following his research we have a day trip sorted to St. Jean de Luz a lovely French fishing village and on Monday when we transit we will visit the Guggenheim museum in Bilbao. Sunday will be another rest day and hopefully great weather at the beach.
So today I managed to post all the blogs I have done so far and get one new one done. Still a bit of a hill to climb – 6 days – but I am confident I can get there before I leave San Sebastián! The internet didnt work too well here and I had committed to not loading photos and just getting the blogs out, then I decided to try the common foyer of the apartmetn we are in and wha-la I have the fastest internet so far. Make hay while the sun shines, and that is why I managed to get 6 blogs up with some photos.
At lunch time we took the short stroll to old town to work on our stamina for tapas. What can I say – the idea is to try a couple at one place and then move on. We find that difficult as we start somewhere good – and then there are so many tasty treats there we don’t seem to get past two places before our bellys are full. I won’t list all the things we ate – as its too hard to remember them all but today’s highlights would have to be a freshly grilled foie with caramelised onions on the side to be eaten with one toasted crouton. OMG – over the top NOM NOM award again. I think this holiday has been about foie, which is ironic as both Vern and I are not ‘liver’ lovers per see. They are so buttery tender smooth you cant imagine. I also enjoyed a combination of white anchovies and octopus , and a red capsicum filled with an anchovie mousse. Drinks today of interest were a local hard apple cider, a white sangria and the local light slightly fizzy white wine poured from a height called txakoli. All most enjoyable although I prefer a red sangria.
Pictured above – lunch part one – white sangria and cider.
The old town and tapas vibe is crazy in a most positive way. The bars are quite small and display the pintxos on the bar – each bar will have a couple of house specialities. They also have blackboards with the bigger tapas written up and you order them at the bar. Some have English/Spanish menus on the tables as well. You stand at the bar and indicate you would like a plate and you load it as you wish, hand it back to a bar man who may heat or toast some items, and make a mental check of what you have, and then give it back to you. If you have ordered a cooked plate they will call you out to come and get it when its ready or in some cases they will bring it to you. They have amazing memories and an honesty system works here – when you leave you rock up to the bar again and pay and if they cant remember what you had (they generally do – incredible) then you let them know. They are keen to sell you drinks at each bar too (oh noooo!) and they are quite cheap for example a good glass of their wine was only 1.90 vs. average 4.50 euro I have been paying in other places. Along with these rules you have many others jostling away to get their spot at the bar and even at the small tables or bar stool benches. All of this jostling is very amicable and social – as well as sharing places at the tables and benches. Over the top of all the happy congested chatter the bar people are yelling orders to the kitchen and then orders ready to the patrons. Its totally chaotically wonderful- I love it! We are spending about 40 euro per meal – including drinks. Not super cheap but I think very good value as we are eating quite expensive ingredients and um lots. You could eat cheaper but when there is foie, you go for it! Most pintxos are around 2.50 to 3.50 euro each.
So after lunch we wandered back home to do some more blogging and rest our tummies for the next session later this evening. We really didn’t need dinner, but it may be some time again before we have this opportunity and we were both taught to make hay while the sun is shinning. We found a lovely patisserie on the way back to the apartment and got a couple of local cakes for pudding – a sweet pastry with pistachio butter cream and an unusual egg type cake – light as sponge but obviously with butter, with an egg custard type filling and on the outside a while gel like skin – maybe egg white and almond and or corn flour? Reminded me of the coating on Asian icecream balls we eat at yum Cha.
We headed out for dinner around 8:45 and life is only just warming up in the eating scene at this time. Vern reckoned he could only fit in two tapa but we managed 3 each before making our way back home. On the way there were these huge 4m puppeteers dancing and spinning around the streets with a few live musicians – it caused great excitement amongst the locals and children who joined in the spinning dancing. I am unsure what that was about, but will google it when I have more time. It was 9:45 by the time we got home and the sun was just setting – another thing to love is the long summer evenings. It is Bastille day today in France and it brought back fond memories of our stay in St. Malo which had incredible sunsets and fireworks at the same time of year when we visited.
On the way home we were treated to a nice soft sunset and paused to enjoy it with others along the decorative wrought iron railing of the La Concha promenade. It was 9:45pm and the sun had only just gone to bed slowly into the sea. I obliged and took some photos for another couple – seems to happen that I get asked quite often; must have free roving photographer tattooed on my forehead. Completing our walk home we felt very happy to be here for a few more days, with a few more wonderful tapa sessions ahead of us.
Travels with Valrock 