We awoke on Tuesday with our first objective – figure out
how we are going to see Bordeaux wineries.
Dad spent a few hours on the phone talking to various tourist offices
trying to get an idea of what is the appropriate procedure for doing so. Since we wanted to see the wineries of Saint
Emilion as well as the historic town, we figured it would be a good place to
start. What we didn’t know is that most wineries expect you to book ahead of
time even if you are a small group. In
other words, you can’t just show up like you do in U.S.A. So we decided that we would wait and see if
our house renter could get back to us with information before making a final
decision on which wineries to go to by car or which tour to take if we didn’t
use a car. Ultimately, we decided on
nothing and felt that Tuesday was not going to work out for the wine tour idea.
The day for wine turned to a day in San Sebastian (Donostia)
to check out the tapas bars and the beach there since it was rainy and crappy
at Biarritz. Our luck with weather thus
far had been extremely poor. I walked
outside for 10 minutes and for the first 5 it was sunny. All of the sudden, it started raining when I
thought it was safe. Blah.
The drive in the rental car was all too exciting. If driving stick shift wasn’t hard enough,
include the inability to read any signs and the absence of a GPS. It wasn’t easy, but Dad got us there in one
piece. Apparently, there are tons of
tolls throughout Europe. It reminded me
of driving through New Jersey, only with sheep and mountains instead of
suburbs. We had to cross over the
Pyrenees mountain range to get to San Sebastian which actually made for some
nice sightseeing along the way.
Once we arrived and parked in a underground parking garage,
we headed out to see the town which actually had good weather for once. I got to practice my limited Spanish to find
out some simple information such as “Where are the bathrooms?” and “How much
does this cost?” Again, once people
replied, it became more difficult to continue the conversation but I was able
to pick up bits and pieces of the responses.
Anyways, I felt much more comfortable here than I did in France where I
knew pretty much nothing.
San Sebastian had relatively tall buildings compared to
Biarritz with roads arranged in a grid, similar to NYC. However, those roads were actually walking
paths more or less, with the occasional service truck travelling down it. Some of the roads were bright and happy
whereas some felt like they may be a little less friendly at night. The most important feature of these streets
was the number of tapas bars located throughout. Every street had a handful of tapas bars
that all seemed pretty similar. No bar
was very big and the way it worked was that you would get a plate and then pick
out as many individual pieces as you want and then show it to the bartender. He totaled it up (usually each piece was
approximately €1.75) and then you paid for it before you ate, kind of
like a buffet, but smaller. Many of the
bars had nowhere to sit, just tables to stand at either inside or outside.
We ate at some random tapas restaurant first to start the
day off and apparently we ordered too many.
I figured I was hungry so we grabbed a bunch of the little pieces. Apparently it is more customary to eat a few
and move on to a different bar, rather than eat a meal’s worth at one
place. Silly Americans we were! All I remembered is that the beer wasn’t that
good and decided against it at any future bars.
I couldn’t really tell you what we ate because it was extremely random
but for the most part it was seafood.
Nick was not pleased at this point since all these towns had seafood all
the time and he was ready for something different. But what can you expect when you are
stationed right on the Atlantic coast?
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| Seafood-based tapas |
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| Dad likes to take lots of pictures |
After some more visiting of a few other things, we got
hungry again so we stopped at a different tapas bar for more appetizer-sized
food. This time we only got a few so
that we didn’t feel out of place. The
bartender was pretty kind at this place and we appreciated when he heated up
the different pieces we chose to eat.
Again, most of it was seafood-like morsels on bread to get an idea of
what we were eating. While we were
eating, the Euro Cup game between Czech Republic and Greece was on and many
people were coming in to watch it. We
saw the first two goals scored by Czech Republic within a few minutes of each
other so it was pretty exciting while we were there.
The long awaited beach walk began after our second tapas
adventure. The beach had to be a mile and
a half long and we walked pretty much the entire thing at low tide. It was evident that high tide wouldn’t permit
us to walk on as much of the beach as we did so we were lucky we got to do it.
Our destination? The wind combs! They
had some cool rock structures over by these “combs” that my brothers and I all
climbed on, a change from the usual sightseeing. Basically, the wind combs were engineered
into some rock that were designed by and architect who was inspired by a
sculptor to put these super heavy pieces of metal embedded in the rock. More picture opportunities ensued.
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| The beach of San Sebastian |
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| Wind comb |
The sun was beginning to set as we searched for another
place to eat dinner at. This time we
ended up choosing a sit-down restaurant that had 3 courses for €15
– much cheaper than other meals we have had thus far. I had some lame stuffed peppers that had no
meat or anything cool in them, just potatoes.
The rest of the family actually got some good value for their money and
a young bottle of wine too! Overall, it
was a good experience as our last meal in San Sebastian. I felt like we got a good idea of what it was
like without spending too much time there.
The bar scene would be nice to visit again when I learn some more
Spanish.
Some general notes from the day:
·
Everyone was exercise freaks at San
Sebastian. Maybe we were in just the
wrong area in France, but everyone in San Sebastian was running to keep in
shape.
·
That being said, most of the dress was much more
casual here than in France. Sneakers
were OK and more comfortable clothing was worn.
Our waiter at the restaurant thought we were French at first.
·
Also, I barely saw anyone smoking. Good job
Spain.
·
Maybe it is a San Sebastian thing, but I noticed
a TON of dogs that were well trained – i.e. no leashes. However, there was a lot of dog crap
everywhere
·
Bathrooms were FREE! Take that, Paris.
·
People still go in the water even though its 60
degrees (16 Celsius). I don’t see how
that is fun.
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