Carol and Jeff infinity We are in an art installation surrounded by mirrors with lights suspended
Okay so I told everyone we were doing a loop around the northern part of Spain for a month and here I am writing about a town in France. So, what's the story? Well, this town is maybe 6 miles from the border and was much cheaper than the Spanish town we meant to visit. Truthfully, I am quite glad we ended up here because it is a nice, quaint, small beach town. It does not look like Spain or probably much of France for that matter. We are in Basque country. The locals are quite proud of their Basque heritage. We saw it in our last stop in LaGuardia Spain which is also part of Basque. The Basque have their own language which is like no other. All of the signs are in French and then Basque and across the border it is Spanish and then Basque. There is a Basque flag and in Spain that province is a little more independent than all of the others except for Catalonia (Barcelona area). We have rented a 1-bedroom apartment about a half mile from the city center and a little further you find the waterfront area. We have an elementary school next door, and they are still in session at the 4th of July although this might be their last week before summer break. The food is quite good here as is the shopping which doesn't hurt that they are having sales. It is a great place just to wander. Much to our surprise when we finally stuck a toe in the beach water toe found that the water is warm. Oops we missed a good beach opportunity except that it tended to be a little windy and cool for us for the beach.
Our apartment for the week upstairs
Le Tour De France
When we were back in Rioja at a winery sharing a tasting with a family from Georgia, we discovered that the Tour De France was starting the next day in this general part of Europe. Our first concern was our ability to drive here since they close the roads - obviously we got here fine. Then I realized that the race was going through St Jean de Luz on our first full day in town. Luckily, we had no plans for the day since the main roads were closed and we got to watch a major sporting event. Literally the race was a half mile away from our apartment! It took a lot of googling to figure out where the course was locally and what time to expect things to happen. The family had taught us about the caravan that comes through first. It is a lot of sponsor vehicles many decorated with emblems of the sponsor or huge bicyclist on it. It was kind of like being at Mardi Gras where you are trying to get them to throw you something. Compared to Mardi Gras they are chintzy with the give aways, but then again, they are doing this for over 3 weeks and lots of miles. My whole haul was an inexpensive bicycle style hat and a bag of candy that says Tour De France on it. Unlike many events in the US, a lot of these people were aiming for young men rather than kids. I guess that is their target market.
Funny to us was that after the caravan, the races did not show up for another hour. Why have all of us on the course so far ahead of the race? Many people did leave. Obviously, some people were watching livestreaming of the race because they started showing up with their phones and telling us where they were. Any geographical description was pretty much lost on us. We faithfully held on to our spot on an island by a round about looking down the road to the bridge that they had to cross to enter town. We had seen lots of random vehicles some alone some in groups but suddenly we had a bunch and then we were all cheering because the lead vehicle was coming. We almost missed the leader he was so far in front of the pack. He was a good 100 meters in front of everyone else even vehicles were in between! The pack oh my what a site and a feel. The pack or Peloton had 3 or 4 bicyclists upfront and then an extremely tight pack of tons of riders. Since they were entering a roundabout where we were they were only 2 lanes for them which may have made it tighter. Much to our surprise there were so many of them going so fast that they had formed a strong wind - think being passed by a semi truck going fast on the highway and causing your car to move. That was our sensation as they passed. Then it was support vehicles with lights and sirens flashing behind them and it was all over. They call the Kentucky Derby the greatest 2 minutes of racing as a fan this was more like 30 seconds of racing. Time to walk back home with everyone else in town.
Click on the video below to watch our few seconds of the race.
Blue Circle is leader Red circle is Peloton aka Pack
Close ups as the video goes so fast
San Sebastián, Spain
We have plotted out when we are going to a couple of the places we want to see in the area and have decided to visit San Sebastian the town we had aimed to stay in the next day. We wake up to an overcast day with a slight chance of rain. Late morning, we finally make it out the door for the half hour drive to the town. It starts to rain lightly on us, and both hope it ends and are glad we brought our rain jackets. Get to the main town and park the car and are both muttering how we like St Jean de Luz better. This is a nice city while we are in a nice town. The architecture is more Spanish - no half-timbered buildings here and they are taller. We start to walk around the beach front (beach of La Concha) which is bigger, and the city grows on us. There are some neat modern sculptures by Eduardo Chillida on the promenade. We make it to the end (go through a tunnel watch some kayaking lessons and other school groups go by) of the promenade which has wrapped around the bay and there are 3 unique sculptures on rocks in the water. We inspect them and then decide to go back to a seaside restaurant and have a late lunch. While we are sitting there we notice a sign describing something (English even!!) so we wander over there and learn that the sculptures are called Peine Del Viento or Comb of the Wind. The plaque describes the artist's inspiration and what it took to install the pieces. While we ate we also admired an island in the bay- Santa Clara Island and debate what one thing is. I think the island looks like a great home for Batman. In reality it is now just a tourist spot with an abandoned lighthouse. We decide to leisurely walk back to our car along the promenade. It is now midafternoon to us Americans and it is sunny. The beach and the swimming areas are now packed with beach goers enjoying the water. We see families, open water swimmers, surfers on the small waves in one area and just plain people having fun. Decide it is a better place than first impression, but we still prefer St Jean de Luz!
We are ready for rain
Statue of Christ watching over us
Top and bottom right are Eduardo Chillida’s Comb of the Earth (Peine del Viento) Bottom Left is 1 of 2 sand art that was washed away at high tide
Wow, what a difference a sunny day makes
St Jean de Luz, France
Beauty scared by the vestiges of WWII
Plage d'Erromardie
As our hosts called it this is the wild beach in St Jean de Luz. We walked down there a couple of times. We passed an outdoor stadium and debated what it was for the first time. I thought bull fights since I saw pictures of bulls Jeff thought I was wrong. Then we passed several campgrounds and finally came to the water. There is a tiny bit of a beach, but the views are fantastic, and we get a drink and set at a counter overlooking the ocean for a while. We now have to walk back up the paved trail to town and our place. The mysterious stadium is now coming alive. Then we pass a family with two young girls holding hot pink stuffed bulls (yes you read that right) who are obviously heading for that stadium. I later saw an ad and realize that yes there are "bulls" in the stadium. I say bulls because they are actually heifers, and their horns have caps on them. In the pictures, it looks like some combination of a Nickelodeon game show with inflatable obstacles and a bull race/show.
Morning run
Guggenheim Museum Balboa, Spain
The Guggenheim Museum was on my list as soon as I knew about it. Partially I just wanted to see the building and yes, it is impressive in person. The surrounding area is nice too with the nearby bridge being worked into the museum's atmosphere and some very nice old buildings across the river. The museum is not that large which I appreciated and is all modern art. When we were there at least most of the halls had temporary exhibits. Our first picture on this blog is from one of those exhibits. The artist experiences sensory events kind of like an epilepsy seizure and has built this exhibit to allow others to experience those events in a positive way. It turned into our favorite exhibit of the day.
We explored the outside of the museum from pretty much every angle. The dog planter is on the street side and the opposite side is the river. The museum has a series of fountains in the front and back with large red dots in it - the dots are 3 dimensional and not just painted on the floor. While we were sitting outside having a snack I thought we heard the fountains come on. We would later realize that no what I heard was the misting system come on around the walkways.
Fog emerged from underneath the bridge each hour
Dog of live flowers is an iconic statute The spider is almost 9 meters tall, see the people in bottom right Iron work is by Eduardo Chillida whose work we saw on the coast of San Sebastián
Inside the museum Bottom art had lots of children running around inside enjoying the maze
San Juan de Gaztelugatxe set of Dragonstone in Game of Thrones
When the ticket takers are making sure everyone has water, you know it is going to be a long hot walk! It was. I think Jeff said it was 2 KM which is around a mile. Sounded nice enough when he brought the site up. What he did not realize was that it is a hard 2km walk. First it is down a steep hill, then you get a little flat before you start walking up that rock wall staircase. On top of that, we thought it was going to be rainy and chilly, so we were overdressed for the hike. In spite of all that, it was quite pretty up on top of the hill and a unique walk.
You can appreciate why they chose this gorgeous location
Click below (3:24) for scene filmed here
Jeff didn’t have a Dragon fly over him, but he wished one had Top of frame is a chapel where in the show a large castle stands
It is a long way down
Le Train de La Rhune
The last thing I had on my list was the train in La Rhune. It is a well-known tourist site and you are supposed to be able to see the Bay of Biscay from the top. So, the plan is to visit it on our way to Pamplona which is our next stop. It is only a half hour away from St Jean de Luz, but it is completely different. Yes, it is still Basque country. But we drive up a hill to a small town in the woods, hunt for a parking place and then luckily get on the next train. Oh, I should add it is a cog railway and we are on it for 35 minutes as it makes its way up an even higher mountain. We have started the ride in France but when we get to the top and end of the railway we are in Spain. We have a little over an hour up at the top before we are scheduled for the return trip down the hill. Unfortunately, as we were going up the hill, fog and clouds move in and we never get to see the Bay of Biscay, but the rest of the scenery was nice. We saw lots of horses and were able to look down on the towns below us in Spain.
Horses on the ascent and our train
"town" at the top of the railway
On the road to Pomplano
early on in our drive we encountered a new definition of narrow road. This gorgeous tree covered lane is our side of the road.
Our drive from Madrid to LaGuardia was uneventful except for the fact the Car Rental agency was running out of cars. We took what they had and were off. We were being extra careful with speed limits and watching the traffic, but it wasn’t a problem. It did really help when I changed the language for the car from Spanish to English so I could read the many messages on the dashboard.
La Rioja is the most famous wine region in Spain. We had been looking forward to this part of the trip for two reasons. The wine and staying at Hotel Castillo El Collado which is located within one of nine Spanish Medieval Cities, LaGuardia part of the Basque autonomous community. Yes, the signs are in both Spanish and Basque. Basque is unrelated to Spanish or any other known language. Fortunately many people speak English and others know how to make do.
What a difference in climate. We were sweating waiting for our rental car in Madrid and looking for a jacket when we arrived at cold and windy LaGuardia. We learned its not normally this cool. It warmed up a little each day of our stay, but that was just going from 60s to 70s and minimal wind.
Our host Javier, who is much older than me and is the owner rushes down the stairs to help with our bags. His English is good enough to make us very welcomed through out our stay. We are staying in what looks like a small castle with a torrent you can go up to for great views. Built in the early 19th century on the site of the original castle, it has only 10 rooms and a restaurant. It reminds us of the Restaurant with rooms concept in Scotland. Our room “The Fable” is huge with an incredible view to the lands below our hillside community. Across the way we can see the white granite mountains of Sierra de Cantabria. This is great.
Our Hotel, great views from the top of the tower
Click above to see the 360 degree view from the top of the Tower
Sunset from the top of the Tower
We opted for the Hotel breakfast the next morning. I should have taken a picture, the table was covered in plates of food waiting for us. Fruit, meat, bread/toast, yogurt, jams, hard boiled eggs and more just for the two of us. We make a dent in it before heading off to visit Bodega Ysios. Its a 30 minute walk down the hill and into the valley. It’s not hard to find as it has a very distinguished architecture.
Bodega Ysios Note the wavy architecture
This winery is owned by a large wine and distilled liquor company that wanted to create an avant- garde boutique winery. To distinguish themselves, they hired the famous architect Calatrava to design the building. It’s both functional and expressive in design.
We are taking the tour, which in most ways is similar to many other wine tours we have taken. However, Calatrava has designed the building to both simplify some of the process and to bring in indirect natural light into the cellar. In the picture below, the tanks above store the wine until its ready to flow down below into fermentation tanks. Note how the beams above slope downward, first left to right and then right to left to create the distinctive appearance from the outside.
See how the beams angle townward above the tanks
After the tour, its time to taste the wine. We share a table with a family from Athens, GA (Go Dawgs) The parents work for the University and the oldest daughter is a student. We opt to buy a bottle of Ysios Blanco 2021 which is made from Viura, a varietal new to both of us. It was a great afternoon learning about the wine and talking about UGA.
Our next stop is back above the valley in the ancient city of LaGuardia to visit Bodega Carlos San Pedro’s. The family claims to have been making wine for over 500 years, but just 300 years in the caves underground below the town. We learn there are over 300 underground caves carved out of the rock. Almost one for every home. Built originally for protection, this one has been a winery for 200 years. While today the fermentation takes place off site, the aging of the wine occurs in this underground cellar.
It’s just the two of us on the tour. We start with a video showing how they made wine with stomping of feet up to 2002. Now they have a modern fermentation process off site and the caves are used for aging both in stone tanks and barrels. It’s time to go down several flights to the cellar. They have a pipe to send wine from the outside to the cellar. The barrels look quite old. They use their barrels for 12 years versus the 5 years we heard from the larger wineries. Our guide invites to climb a ladder to look into the stone tanks, which I find filled to the brim. He extracts a sample from the tank for us to try. It’s a young wine, so not yet ready. Again, our taste goes to a Tempranillo that has aged. This one longer than most. 2011 Carlos San Pedro
Top is wine aging in barrels and bottles Bottom is me looking down from the atop the ladder
We eat in a restaurant in the town and after dinner, our waiter invites us to visit their Cave Bar. So we descend several flights and find a long twisty tunnel with many tables created from wine barrels and a large table created from a wine press. Then it's off to wander the town, which has really come alive in the evening.
Top - view of the cloud shrouded mountains at night Below - two odd art installations of everyday items from a recent past
The next morning, we opt to walk to a cafe for a light breakfast of Spain’s version of French toast (which we learned about on our food tour in Madrid), which has been soaked a long time and has a slightly gooey texture within a toasted exterior covered in cinnamon. Next stop Haro, which is a nearby town with several wineries that have wine bars in the town center. The first winery is Bodega Muga. We go straight to the tasting room/wine bar. Carol finally gets to enjoy a Cava, a sparkling white wine made from Viura and Chardonay. I enjoy one of their 2015 Prado Enea Grans Reserva, which is another barrel aged Tempranillo which is better than most I’ve tried.
Bodega Muga
Our next winery was an impulse as we wanted someplace we could order some food. La Rioja Alta fit the bill. Carol ordered Lagar D Cervera 2022, which is made from another new varietal to us, Albariño. I try their 2019 Finca El Otero, which is a TInta del Pais varietal that is new to us. It’s very good, but out of my budget, so we buy Carol’s white.
Bottom right is a retired bottler used as a lawn ornament
We had a big finish planned for our day. That is to visit a hotel designed by the famous architect Frank Gerry, the Hotel Marques de Riscal. We had tried to get a dinner reservation the night before, but that was booked out to August. So we decided to drive by and have some food and drink at the bar. That turned out not to be, as they were not allowing anyone on property without a reservation. None the less, we drove through the countryside to find the picture below. We will have another opportunity to see his work when we visit the Guggenheim Balboa museum. We first saw his work at the BioMuseo in Panama City years ago.
The hotel is covered in bright purple, pink and gold metallic folds on right
At the end, we wished we had spent another night or two, three was not enough. With each day, we discovered more to see and do like shown below: delicious bakery, automaton clock, tree’s sculpted to create a flat canopy, running routes through vineyards and always something around the next corner.
The last day trip we did from Madrid was a combined tour of the towns of Segovia and Avilla. We first went to Avilla which is a walled city. Saying it is a walled city is a little bit of an understatement. It is one of the longest walled cities in the world with 8,255 square feet of continuous walls and 88 semi circle turrents. It is also known as the Town of Walls and Saints. The walls were heavily built from repurposed stones some of which were old tombstones from Roman Tombs. The Saints part comes from St Teresa of Jesus who was born in this town and many pilgrims come here because of her.
Avilla
Jeff by one of the main gates to the walled city
St Teresa of Jesus
St Teresa of Jesus
St Teresa of Jesus was born in Avilla to a wealthy family who had bought a knighthood. Her father bought the knighthood to help his acceptance in Christian society since his father had been a Jew at one time and converted to Christianity rather than leave Spain. Her mother raised her as a devout Christian. Mom may have overdone the Christian upbringing because at a young age, her and her older brother tried to run away to help fight the Muslims or moors. Happily, an uncle saw them outside the walls of the city and brought them back. However, it was really the beginning for St Teresa. She would later join the local monastery and become a nun. She would become a mystic Christian and would also later push that the nuns should use less of their wealth on themselves and more for the people who needed help. Neither of these beliefs were very popular with the other nuns and some clergy to the extent she was punished until a Spanish King befriended here. She died on a trip to a neighboring town, so she was buried there. Well people in Avilla felt she should be buried in Avilla, so the coffin was opened 9 months later and while her clothing was rotted her body was intact. Someone took a finger then. The poor lady's burial site would change several times over the years because of politics. In the end, parts of her are still intact and in several locations. Geez what a tough after life! 
Walls - long and strong
The tour ended with a climb up to the top of the walls and a chance to explore. Our guide warned us not to turn left at one corner, but to turn around or we would be gone too long/lost and left behind. Something about a really long way around!
Lots of churches
Segovia
Was our second town for the day and all I knew was it had a really impressive roman aqueduct. Jeff thought there would be a really interesting castle too. Happily, we were both correct. The first thing you see as you enter the town is the aqueduct. It is tall and very long and built without any type of glue/mortar just stone on top of stone. And still standing I should add.
As we walked around the town, our guide pointed out a unique building feature that is common in Segovia called graffiti. No not the current version but a much nicer version. It is where they texturized the walls/added patterns to the whole structure. After showing us part of the town, the guide set us free to find lunch and then join him for the walk to and tour of the castle.
Roman Aqueduct
pictures of various forms of graffiti
Originally a Mosque, then a Synagogue and then Convento Del Corpus Christi We couldn’t go inside, but the bottom picture shows the interior.
Cathedral De Segovia
Alcazar
As I said above, Jeff was right there was a gorgeous castle in Segovia and it is called Alcazar. Look closely at the pictures because you have seen interpretations of it for years. Disney based Snow White's castle on this one. The castle was in use till the 1700s when there was a fire and most of the interior burned. We were told that one painting was original, one ceiling was the spare from the original structure and the rest of it was rebuilt. I have to admit I saw this one a day or 2 after the replacement castle in Madrid and I kind of prefer the style of this one although the new one is much larger and quite impressive. Like many old buildings in Europe, this one was added onto several times including one time so the king could impress his new wife. If you look closely at the picture below you will see different types of stonework and different building styles.
Moats and Gardens below the walls
Due to a fire, the contents came from other castles. The stain glass was commissioned during the renovation
The ceiling I really like is on the top left. Bottom right is the chapel built for the wedding of a king
