Through France
We left Sunday morning around 8:45 and pointed the car at Orléans, France. One short stop just over the French border, then past Paris, and we were at our hotel in the suburbs before 15:00 hrs.
After a rest it was a short drive into the center. We saw the enormous cathedral and the house where Joan of Arc stayed, and wandered through the medieval streets spotting all the Space Invader street art.
Next to Place de Loire was a cinema showing “L’Odyssée.” Our daughter Juliet was outraged by the age rating: 12, where it’s 16 at home. Unfortunately we were far too tired for three hours in a cinema. Maybe tomorrow.
The next morning, after a decent breakfast with French cheeses, croissants, and little pancakes, we drove on to Bordeaux. Slightly tense, because the wildfires were in the news, but we didn’t notice a thing. The hotel was in the center with parking five minutes away, and the receptionist visibly flinched when we mentioned we were driving to Spain the next day. Several roads were closed, she said. Could take a while. Google Maps was less dramatic, so we kept our spirits up.
We walked out toward the train station for a late lunch at Coffee Columbus and then further into town. It was very hot outside, 28°C, so we decided to cool down in the cinema. We got the last seats for L’Odyssée in IMAX, almost front row, which was exactly as overwhelming as that sounds. Afterwards we had dinner at the pub on the corner and walked back to the hotel.
San Sebastián
We were in the car by ten and Google Maps routed us around the fires. Back roads and villages were slower, but we never got stuck, and eventually we were on the highway again. An hour and a half later we drove into San Sebastián.
Reaching the hotel was interesting. The entrance is buried in a grid of one-way streets and it took us two attempts to get to the front door. The receptionist explained the route to the garage clearly, and then complimented us on being friendly about it. Apparently most guests arrive complaining.
Then it was time for our first pintxos! We walked the promenade to well-recommended bar Rojo y Negro and they were as good as promised. After that we went into the Old Town for tarta de queso at La Viña, where the Basque cheesecake was invented in the eighties. It was delicious!
We had dinner at Aitana Donostia around 19:30. They were full, but if we were out within the hour we could take a reserved table. Fine by us. We had Rigatoni with ragù, a Cuban sandwich, and tacos, all shared as usual. We went for ice cream afterwards and saw the sunset over Playa de la Concha.
The next morning we walked the promenade to Monte Igueldo and took the funicular up to an old-fashioned amusement park from 1912, with a former lighthouse as its viewing tower. It was 25°C, but in full sun it felt considerably more. Juul did the bumper cars while we sat in the shade. The tower was worth the climb: a wide view over the bay, and a very welcome cold wind. Next we rode the Swiss Mountain rollercoaster, which is more or less the point of going up a mountain.
Lunch was near the hotel at La Issla: iced flat white and jugo de naranja y fresa, which sounds so much better than “orange and strawberry juice”. In the afternoon we did a walking tour through Parte Vieja with our guide Ibette. We’d already seen most of it ourselves the day before, but hearing more context made the revisit worth it.
Afterwards, we had more pintxos (obviously), then over the bridge to Gros, the hip surf neighborhood. A bit of a letdown tbh, possibly the weather’s fault. One last bar for a hamburguesa and two queso croquetas, again very tasty.
Bilbao
After a short drive to Sercotel Ayala in Bilbao, we walked to Arvo, a good coffee place near the Guggenheim, where we ordered Basque cheesecake again, for scientific comparison purposes. San Sebastián wins, but it was close.
We were early for our museum timeslot, so we walked around the building first. There we saw Jeff Koons’ Puppy and Louise Bourgeois’ Maman, a giant spider. Inside we walked through Richard Serra’s “The Matter of Time,” huge curving walls of weathered steel. And we saw detailed tapestries by Igshaan Adams, a Jasper Johns retrospective and much more.
Afterwards we went to The Geek Store in a shopping center nearby and bought Stranger Things Funkos for Juul, and a Michael Jordan Funko for me.
We had tacos at a Mexican place, then back via the Lego Store to meet some friends, who were doing almost the same trip and happened to be a few streets away.
The next day we had a guided bike tour. Our Flemish guide, Rik Merchie, talked us through how Bilbao came to be, the bridges, the architecture, and the Basque language. He’s also an author, so we bought his book about the city at the end.
For lunch we went to Casco Viejo, a medieval quarter of narrow streets, churches, and squares. We came back in the evening for dinner at Gerri Taberna and had delicious pintxos and some very good ravioli. It had been gray all day and then the sun broke through and it was thirty degrees within the hour. We decided to walk along the river, to see the Guggenheim in the evening light.
Picos de Europa
The next day we drove from Bilbao to the mountains. An hour and a half of heavy traffic before it thinned out, then winding roads leading us through Potes to our hotel where we left our luggage. We went back to Potes where we found a terrace for lunch. Then we visited the Torre del Infantado, a medieval tower that was once a noble family’s fortified home. It has six floors, with an interactive exhibition on every floor, all in Spanish. We enjoyed it, although we couldn’t read it, and the view was great. There was a farm just outside the village selling ice cream, so we stopped there too. Dinner at the hotel was not great. We won’t try that again.
Breakfast was typical for the region: toast, small fried pancakes, slices of cake, butter and jam. On the third morning we spotted a note explaining you could pay extra for meat, cheese, or eggs. We wish we’d known sooner.
We drove 25 minutes to Fuente Dé for the cable car and discovered you’re meant to book a slot at least 24 hours ahead. The next available was at 14:30 hrs. It was just before eleven. So, back to Potes for some grocery shopping, a walk along the river, and lunch.
We returned with our tickets at our time. One cable car goes up while the other comes down, so nothing moves quickly, but eventually the eighteen of us were in the box and climbing 753 meters. The view at the top is remarkable. We hiked a good hour further up and back, with birds circling and a number of Dutch people around us. Back down by 17:00, then dinner in Potes with friends before they moved on.
On our last full day Juliet and I had booked a canyoning trip. With our wetsuits and heavy boots on we drove with our guide and a Manchester couple to the Navedo canyon. Great fun and harder work than expected. We had lunch at a small café and walked back through the market, where we finally found the football shirts we’d been hunting for in Bilbao: Haaland and Bellingham shirts acquired.
The afternoon got hot, so we took it slow on the hotel terrace. Burgers and a poké bowl in Potes, another ice cream at the pricey but excellent parlor, and a game of cards before bed.
Olite and the Bardenas
We left the Picos in the morning and drove back the way we’d come as far as Bilbao. Then we headed south to Olite, a castle village just past Pamplona. Finding the entrance to the hotel, Parador de Olite, was a challenge again. We knew we were sleeping in the old castle, but weren’t at all sure we were allowed to drive through the gate in the town wall. So we parked outside and walked in first, and found four short-stay spaces by the entrance for unloading. Handy, given the heat.
Our room was large, the castle corridors had suits of armor, and the whole village had medieval flags hanging from the windows. We were hungry at 19:00 (still not used to Spain time) and no restaurant opens before 20:00. We held out and ate albóndigas, pollo, hamburguesa, and salad on the castle square. For flexitarians like us, northern Spain is a challenge.
Half an hour away is Bardenas Reales, a semi-desert of huge rocks and canyons, a good part of which belongs to a military base. At the visitor center we noticed two staff members repeating the same set of driving instructions on a loop. We took the short route, since the full loop is at least two hours and it was blazing hot.
The first stop was already worth the drive and at the second there was something to climb, so we climbed it, and the view from up there was awesome. The third stop was the famous one, the Castildetierra or “The Earth Castle”, which kinda looks like a 🍆.
Back in Olite we had sandwiches on the square in front of the hotel, spent the afternoon in the room, and completely forgot to visit the castle, which closes at 20:00. So we ate at the same restaurant as the night before, this time with a view of the bit we’d missed.
The long way home
On our final day we were the first at breakfast, so we could leave Olite at 8:30, with eleven hours ahead of us. It all went fine: good weather, traffic only around Bordeaux and Paris, four stops, two for fuel and two to eat. After Paris the road to Reims was quiet and beautiful, but we were getting very tired. The hotel was a basic chain, fine and spacious. We slept early and the next morning drove the last four hours to get home.
