Basque Country (Bilbao, San Sebastian)

We spent this past weekend touring Basque Country in Northern Spain with a couple friends down from London.  The area is world renowned for their art and food.  Learning from our previous trip in Spain, we decided to take advantage of the train system in order to have a more relaxing trip.

Bilbao is a very calm city compared to Barcelona. One of our main activities in Bilbao was visiting the Guggenheim Museum. We really enjoyed not only the art, but actually seeing the building itself since we had just recently stayed in a hotel designed by the same architect.  The museum definitely had art that made you think.  Jolene actually got lost in one piece.  I personally like the stuff that doesn't require thinking. For example, the giant puppy made of flowers in front of the museum.  After the museum we met up with some friends and enjoyed some late night tapas and wine which lasted long into the night, making me a very calm/quiet navigator the next day 

as we travelled to San Sebastian.

In San Sebastian, we went on a two day "ir de pintxos" which is basically a pub crawl in the Basque Country with a focus on their tapas while sneaking in their cider, beer, and wine along the way. I definitely lost track of the many places we sampled throughout the city.  Once we felt we tasted just about everything, we decided to use some of our free time to hike up one of the mountains on the side of town and even visit one of their famous churches (The Good Shepard).

 
                    

Operation "Learn to Drive a Manual Car"

What's a weekend getaway without a bit of stress??

When making a roadtrip through Spain, renting an automatic car is not an option, so our only option was to rent a manual car. Neither of us have ever driven a manual car before, but Mike and I are always up for a challenge! Growing up, my Dad was in the process of teaching me how to drive a stick, but life happened and I never got the chance to actually drive one. I decided that was enough education for me in order to figure this out, so with a few follow-up video chat lessons with my Dad, multiple YouTube videos, a virtual drive with google maps and a reconnaissance mission to Hertz, I was good to go.

Refusing to get back in the car after getting lost in the vineyard

Though I managed to successfully trick Hertz into thinking we've done this before and got us to Pamplona, Elciego, and then back to Barcelona safely, it was by no means a smooth ride. Mike mastered the look of "Yea, woman driver" which was given to all the people staring at me as I stalled multiple times in traffic. When I stall a car, I stall it at least 5 times before I get it going again. I got stuck on a steep hill, diagonally, just before a blind curve, then decided to drive on a private road through the vineyard where I had to figure out how to make a multi-point U-turn to get out of the vineyard. Mike had to push the car on a multiple occasions to help me get into first gear. He had a lot of faith that I would decide to stop again to pick him back up. And finally, I stalled on the entrance lip of the parking garage needing Mike to push the car again while also having a homeless guy ask us if we needed help.

Parking in the bus spot seemed like a safer idea

Things I've learned from this experience... Don't drive a stick in flip-flops. Starting the car with the gas pedal is a pretty important skill. When in a bind, Mike will always push the car for you. It's a relief to have people pass you on the road, even if they are flicking you off along the way. I am not opposed to paying someone to drive my car for me. And the expression "You can't do the same thing over and over again and expect different results" holds very true.

Car safely returned back to Hertz

In the end, driving a manual car is fun, but I will never try it again unless I have an experienced driver sitting in the passenger seat with me.

Elciego, Spain (Basque Country)

To continue our trip across Northern Spain we drove through Navarra and La Rioja to a small town called Elciego.  We had been told by some good friends that this was a great spot to enjoy Spain and its world famous Rioja wine.

Marques de Riscal Hotel

We stayed at the hotel on the Marques de Riscal vineyards that was designed by the world famous architect Frank Gehry.  Based on what we were told it is supposed to represent the colours of the Rioja wine in their specific bottles and who am I to disagree.  He did design the Guggenheim.

Crianza 2007

We were only there for a day and a half but really enjoyed the peace and quiet this place provided as it overlooked the small town. We obviously did a tour of their bodega (Jolene's first wine tour!) and got to walk through their old and new cellars as well. In one of underground rooms they store the family's private wine collection that consists of over 100,000 bottles of wine and some that were bottled in the 1800's. This of course was followed by some wine tastings which then of course led into a full day of sipping wine overlooking the vineyards and working through the various different types of wine they currently make.

We ended up having dinner at the restaurant in the hotel, which of course was maybe just a little bit too fancy for us.  It involved multiple courses of small portions with abstract food presentation.  I also think we went through the entire hotel supply of silverware throughout our meal. While it all tasted great, there was one dish we referred to as the puddle (slivered red shrimp on a garlic cream base) and also the dish the waiter suggested for me was the pigeon in a pear glaze which was very good as well.

La Rioja region is great and there are bodegas all over the place you could stop at when visiting. We'd definitely suggest visiting and spending more time there if you can fit it in.

Pamplona/Iruña, Spain (Encierro de San Fermín. Día 14 Julio)

Pamplona was a great time and definitely an experience we won't soon forget.  Jolene has fallen in love with the way the Spanish celebrate.  There for the moment, dancing in the street, playing music, singing and chanting things with their friends and strangers.

"A San Fermin pedimos, por ser nuestro patron, nos guie en el encierro dandonos su bendicion." (We ask San Fermin, being our patron saint, to guide us in the bull run and give us his blessing).

It didn't take us long before we changed into the red and white outfits that the entire city was wearing.  We wandered the crowded streets and Plaza del Castillo with the food, bands, street performers, and of course many Spaniards and tourists spilling their beer and sangria as they partied.  As we wandered through our main goal was to trace the path that the Running of the Bulls take during the festival.  The festival would be ending the next day and that would be the final run so we didn't want to mess it up.  As we traced the route from the beginning to end there was also a constant parade of people and bands going down it.  Jolene's favorite part was being in the midst of this band with blue bandannas as they played down the street.  A couple times their slow paced music turned into a fast pace tune where the entire street full of people would run with the band to the upbeat music until it quickly slowed down again.

Our final day in Pamplona we got up at 6 am to trek across town for the 8 am run.  Jolene headed to the arena where the bulls would end up.  I obviously went down the street where the bulls should be running.  After waiting nearly an hour we were escorted off the street by the police and I had to run through the back streets to get back on the path even close to where they bulls would start.  The streets were packed and eventually they set off a firework and released the bulls.  In an effort to not get gored, I jumped into a doorway on the street and let a group of bulls run past me.  Assuming that was all of them, I immediately ran after the group of bulls, jumping over the bodies of people that had fallen in front of me.  Very soon I realized there were still bulls to come from the panicked looks back from those people in front of me.  I made it around the last turn and started to book into the tunnel of the arena when I heard cursing in multiple directions and jumped towards the wall as an unexpected two bull ran right past us.  It was definitely an interesting experience.

After the run we were able to stick around in the arena to watch those who had run with the bulls pretend to be matadors with bull calves that were let in one at a time.  I chose to jump out of the ring and join Jolene to watch this part having had enough fun for one day.

¡Feliz Cumpleaños!

It ended up that a very rainy day in Barcelona on the 1^st of July was also a great birthday.  We got Jolene a Barcelona Zoo pass, three different cupcakes from a special cupcake shop, had basque tapas at Orio for dinner with sangria, and then rooted on Spain in the Euro Cup finals for a 4-0 win at a bar in Barri Gotic.

Jolene got a ton of cheers in her Spain jersey, and we also had a British couple completely confused that we weren’t Spanish when asking them to take our picture.

The streets are going crazy with fireworks and cheers.  I’m going to guess we’ll be hearing explosions for hours to come.  What a day!