I decided I needed to get away over Easter and found myself a reasonably priced ticket to Bilbao, Spain. I also thought Spain was a good destination because it would probably be (a) warmer than Munich and (b) I could practice my burgeoning Spanish skills. Well, (a) turned out not to be true (6 days of sunshine and +20 degrees in Munich compared with 2 in Basque country), but I saw a lot of wonderful things and managed not to embarrass myself too badly with the language.
One thing I like about the Páis Vasco is that people don’t look at you like you’re a freak enjoying the sunshine in April. It rains so much there, that they take advantage of sunny days too! On Easter Monday everyone and their dog (literally) were outside. I went to the small town of Gexto and enjoyed a caña (a small beer) and a plate of olives (I know, I know, the world is divided into olive-lovers and olive-haters, and the haters can just picture something else then) in the middle of a hundred Spanish conversations. Almost everywhere I went I was brave enough to ask in Spanish, but usually not brave to say “I only understood about 10% of what you just said…”.
Olives and a caña!
San Sebastián is a beautiful city on the coast. Here are some interesting facts/highlights about the place:
- Residents decided to build its upper-end hotels and restaurants when the Queen, who suffered from psoriasis, a nasty skin condition, came to spend her summers there since soaking in the sea relieved her symptoms. During WWII most of Europe’s royal families moved there to wait out the war since Spain was not involved, having just made it through their own civil war.
- Pinchos! (the Basque version of tapas, developed as a simple and tasty way of killing time between meals). They are complex, succulent, miniature cuisine generally (but not always) built on a baguette base and the layered creations are held in place with a toothpick. My favourite was probably one with goat cheese drizzled with apricot marmalade. Check out the retro-cash register too:
This was what I got when I told the barkeep to: “surprise me”. To help wash down your pinchos, locals order a small glass (more like a large shot) of white wine from the region called “Txacoli” .
- Funky sculpture of a Wind Comb (“Peine de Viento”) by Eduardo Chillida, which, according to my free touristic brochure is a combination of “wrought iron, stone and sea”.
- This is one of the few cities which has truly beautiful beaches the city. The largest and most central of them, Playa de la Concha, is bounded by Mount Urgull and Mount Igeldo both of which offer great views of the ocean, beach and island.
- San Sebastián has over 100 different designs of street lamps. I wonder how many different kinds of lightbulbs?
- On one day where it just poured I visited the aquarium. Some of the highlights were translucent shark embryos, crazy vertically swimming and feeding razorfish, anchovies bathed in black light, flashing/glowing whenever they moved their gills, manta rays and grinning sharks.
You have to see dancing, paper-thin razorfish to believe it. I wouldn’t want to step on that spiky animal in the background either.
This was kind of scary:
Temperature difference in ca. 12 hours:
Requisite foreign cat picture:
