We left Madrid to travel to San Sebastian for a 2 night stay. We had a lunch stop at Pamplona to show Julie where she could run with the bulls if she so wished. However, she declined after seeing the plaques on the street commemorating all those who have not finished the run….due to obvious reasons! The 18th Century City Hall is a beautiful building which we admired while having the “best bocadillo in the world” for lunch.

We then arrived in San Sebastian, a resort town on the Bay of Biscay in Basque country. quite close to the French border. It is famous for its pintxos bars which are Basque Tapas usually served on bread and the toppings vary from seafood, ham, peppers, cheese, even blood sausage which we did not try. It has more Michelin stars per capita than anywhere in the world, however we only frequented the smaller local bars. Our stay began, of course with a drink in the Plaza de La Constitucion to work out our plan of attack.

Our plan was…eat and drink our way through bars in the old town! Simple. Our one full day in San Seb was sadly quite a drizzly day with grey skies but it didn’t stop us going out. We had fun “trying” to speak in Spanish to order things and watching the waiters pour the local wine called txakoli, with their arms ridiculously high up in the air, the glass down below and not spilling a drop. It is tradition to have one pintxos and one drink, then move onto another bar, so when in San Seb, that’s what we did.

We had started the day with a yummy pastry breakie but that didn’t stop us from eating all day. We did a bit of shopping, walked the streets and when the rain became a little heavier, it was into a bar for food and drinks.

We frequented many bars but our highlights were the meatballs, the beef cheeks and the torrija (french toast) at Atari and the zamburinas or scallops at Itxaropena, a recommendation from our host! Yummo!.

The next morning, quite early, 6am, we sadly bid farewell to Julie, and decided to go for a walk. It was a much better day with blue skies so took a few photos without the cloud hanging around.

We had a fun time with Julie, and it was time for us to head back to France. Next blog will be of our time in La Rochelle where the weather became a little warmer, not like it is in Melbourne!!!

So it is that time.

A drink and watch the Tour de France LIVE!

Adios from Spain

Bienvenue from France

Lots of love

Greg and Rhonda

xxx