All posts tagged: Spain

A Pictorial Tour, part one!

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On our recent trip to Spain, Portugal and France we took an obscene number of photo’s which took forever to edit once we got home. After natural selection got rid of about 700 of them, we were left with about 1400 images of varying degrees of quality and/or interest. Here, in no particular order are a few of our favourites. La Boqueria market, Barcelona. The best thing about La Ramblas, a wonderful, diverse marketplace. Chateau Chenonceau, Loire Valley. The valley is full of Chateau’s and this is as stunning as they come. Amboise Chateau. Normandy American Cemetery & Memorial. A moving tribute to the brutality of war. Paris. Still the best city we have visited, could spend months here and not get bored. Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao. Truly the best museum experience ever! L’Abbey Fontevraud, Loire Valley. Atmospheric, moody, haunting…and the best meal of our trip. Livrarian Lello & Irmao, Porto. How good is this bookshop? More tourist attraction than viable business…they should charge admission, just don’t tell them! Juno Beach, Normandy. B&W suits the somber …

Gluttonous Shenanigans.

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After last nights revelry, a run along the foreshore was mandatory. After a sleep in, of course. I turned left at La Concha beach, while Rachael headed right towards Playa de Zurriola, which is the surf beach across the river. The beaches are spectacular, overlooked by imperial hotels and apartments, all very French Riviera like, combined with beachside pavilions housing bars, restaurants and the best positioned gym in Spain. Sunday morning saw the promenades packed with people walking or running off the previous nights indulgence! La Concha is by far the larger, sweeping around a small bay with the Isle Santa Clara plonked in the middle. Plenty of yachts complete the scene of relaxed opulence, bobbing on the gentle swell drifting in from the Bay of Biscayne. Forty minutes later we meet back at the start…and our day commences. With breakfast! At another great patisserie, packed to the gills on a late Sunday morning. Our body clocks are all over the joint, and breakfast at 11.30 doesn’t seem out of place. Croissants anyone? We headed …

Onward to Bordeaux

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   Our time in Spain has come to an end, normal eating habits about to realign. San Sebastián was fabulous, all we had heard and more.    Not sure we could keep up the pace for much longer, so probably a good thing for our waistline and liver if we head up the road to France. No chance of overindulging there? Spain and Portugal have been tremendous, beautiful countries, lovely people, and exquisite food and drink. Sangria has put pressure on Spritz as our drink of choice, with Negroni making a late charge for line honours. We had planned to spend our last meal in Spain eating pinxtos and having a glass of Cava for breakfast, but the health Gods must having been watching and our venue of choice was not open, nor were second or third position.    Oh well, patisseries and coffee it is then! We caught the local train to the border, then the fast train on to Bordeaux. Only problem was the ‘fast’ train stopped all stations so took about three …

Onward to San Sebastián 

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This morning we are up and at ’em, as we have things to see and a car to drop off, so we forgo breakfast and hit the road to a “quaint” seaside village…according to the hotel manager. About an hour later we reached this quaint village thinking it would be an old fishing town full of shanties and sea salts, all terracotta and rust. But, non. It was a modern(ish) holiday destination with a nice beach and plenty of high rise apartment blocks. More Torquay than Wye River! Anyhow, we parked and found a tiny cafe with fresh baked goodies, and a lovely Spanish lady with no English to compliment our no Spanish. First time we’ve encountered this, we’ve been spoilt till now, but no problem, lots of waving of hands and smiles all round and we had breakfast in front of us. Goodbye ‘village’, next stop Bilbao and the Guggenheim Museum. Our initial plan was to spend time just looking around the outside of what is a spectacular building, as time was pressing, but …