Oct 25-27, 2009 – San Sebastian, Spain – Tapas

Laura-Lyn and I ventured out to a nearby tapas bar to sample some of this San Sebastian tradition.  In an amazing coincidence, the bartender, who claimed to be Basque first (and maybe Spanish never) had met his Korean wife in Burnaby, BC and they had settled back in San Sebastian.  As you can see the tapas are chased by the rich red wine of the region.

When we say the tapas bar was close to our pension, we’re not kidding.  Laura-Lyn took these two pictures from our window.  The first is a picture of the sign of our pension and the second is of the Taberna Gandarias which was only a few doors down the street of the old city.

Oct 25-27, 2009 – San Sebastian, Spain – Bilbao and the Guggenheim Museum

About an hour up the road from San Sebastian is the city of Bilbao, home to the Frank Gehry-designed Guggenheim Museum.  We figured it was worth the drive.  It was.

It was a beautiful day and we parked and walked along the river towards the Museum site.  This was one of our first glimpses.

Another view.

Here are some other works of art – Laura-Lyn, Charlotte, and Allister.  Behind them you’ll notice some brightly colored shapes that are shown in close up in the photo on the right.  Those who have read the Paris entries of this blog will recognize the style of Jeff Koons who also had a number of pieces displayed at Versailles.

 

According to Allister and Charlotte, the playground located right next to the Guggenheim, was also a work of art.

One of the coolest pieces of art on display inside the Guggenheim was Richard Serra’s The Matter of Time, a set of giant metal sculptures that occupied a which a giant exhibition space.  More information about this sculpture can be found at this YouTube link.

Oct 25-27, 2009 – San Sebastian, Spain

After leaving Cap Ferret, we headed for San Sebastian, Spain.  I took the following photo from a hilltop overlooking the city that we reached through a funicular railway.  More on this in a moment.

In this photo, the old town, where our pension was located is just to the right of the hill in the top left corner of the picture.  This entire inner harbour was very scenic and had a seawall I ran from one end to the other in about 40 minutes – to give you an idea of its length.

Here is the other half of the San Sebastian’s harbor.

This photo is from the street of the old town looking up to the 3rd floor location of Pension Aimur.  We were told by Christine, the delightful owner of the pension, that the building was more than 300 years old. 

This was a great location whose only drawback was the complete lack of any parking in the vicinity.  Upon arrival we got our car as close to the pension as we could – this turned out to be about 300 meters – and then lugged our luggage the rest of the distance through the streets of the old town.  Then I went off to find parking park lot at around 5:30 pm on a Saturday night in San Sebastian’s downtown.  After lengthy delays, I found a spot in an underground parking garage connected to a shopping mall and walked back to the pension.

This is the funicular railway that took us up to the viewpoint overlooking the bay at San Sebastian.  Most of the equipment appeared to be original but seemed to function fine.  The one on the left is the car we rode and the photo on the right gives some sense of the steepness of the track.

 

This photo shows our funicular car’s mate – that helps pull it to the top and govern its speed when descending.  This shows the track where the two cars pass each other.

Oct 25-27, 2009 – San Sebastian, Spain – A stop in Saint-Jean-De-Luz (France)

After leaving Cap Ferret, we headed for San Sebastian, Spain.  On the way we stopped in a picture-perfect Basque community in France, Saint-Jean-De-Luz.  As is our custom, we parked our car near where we wanted to go and walked.  One of the first sights we encountered was the working harbor of the city.

 

As we walked through the city we passed a nice square where a number of people were enjoying the sunshine and lunch in some sidewalk cafes.  After passing up another couple of streets we came to this wall and hiked up a staircase similar to the one pictured here.

 

We could hear the surf as we walked up the stairs but were unprepared for the sight that awaited us – a very scenic, horseshoe-shaped harbor.

After our short stop to tour and for lunch in Saint-Jean-De-Luz, we headed on to San Sebastian.