Trip to Basque country

G and I took a weekend trip up to San Sebastián, called Donostia in Basque. It’s in northern Spain situated around the Bay of La Concha on the southern edge of the much larger Bay of Biscay. It was a 6-hour bus ride (including 2 or 3 stops at towns en route) to get there and the weather was gorgeous: sunny and 70 with a light breeze. We stayed in a hotel on the side of one of the hills on the outskirts of town and G tried to walk my feet off both days.

Bicycles and motos abound
One of the first things I noticed about Donostia was the bicycle lanes. The city is 23 sq miles and a good part of it is flat. The majority of the streets are narrow and one-way with well-marked (sometimes including with waist-high pillars) and frequently used bicycle lanes. Along some of the main thoroughfares there are separate wide, paved bicycle and walking paths. We saw a few hardy souls struggling up the steep, winding roads that snake around the hills surrounding the bay, but most cyclists stuck to the level areas with their groceries, purses, etc. in baskets on the handlebars. And small motorcycles and scooters? They were everywhere! There were block after block of them parked side by side.

The bay(s) are “cute”
The bay (or bays, depending on how you look at them) were much smaller than I had anticipated, but they have great sandy beaches and a fabulous, wide, 2-mile long promenade bordering them. Everybody and his cousin saunters along the promenade, anchored at one end by a small park-like area with the “Comb of the Winds” sculptures placed on rocky outcroppings and at the other end with “Old Town”.

Apparently some of the hardy Basque men swim across the bay every day of the year, including during the cold, snowy winters. OK, I’m impressed.

Strolling pairs of older women are ubiquitous
An unusually high percentage of the population must be older (60’s, 70’s, and above?) women because they were everywhere, dressed in hose, skirt/jacket suits, jewelry, etc. and strolling two-by-two. (I think we saw a lone woman once; never a set of three.) I began to wish I had one of those little counters you carry in your hand (like the door person at Costco has) to keep track of their numbers.

Pintxos are great!
Whoever came up with the idea of pintxos was a genius! (Pronounced peen chose) I don’t know how many little bars there are, but in the older part of town, there are several per block, with patrons spilling out into the street. Each one has a long counter jammed with plates piled high with different types of beautifully presented pintxos, which can be just about anything—slices of baguette with mounds of creamy combinations of seafood and/or vegetables; slices of asparagus paté topped with dots of sour cream (?) and stuffed, sliced olives; pickled peppers; octopus; tuna-stuffed red peppers on a slice of baguette; white asparagus wrapped in a paper-thin slice of jamon and drizzled with mustard sauce; and much, much more. Each one is sized for perhaps 2-4 mouthfuls.

We’d take a dinner-sized plate, select 3 or 4 to share (Believe me, it’s really hard to chose!) and order our drinks (usually a naturally-brewed hard cider, beer, or wine), then find a place to sit or stand. A couple of times he ordered hot pintxos, such as a flaky pastry stuffed with wild mushrooms or foie gras on a baguette slice, each topped with a savory wine sauce. (I’d never had foie until then. G didn’t tell me what it was before I took a bite, either, so I wouldn’t have any preconceptions.)

Apparently the way it works is that after leisurely savoring one bar’s offerings, you wander along to another bar and repeat the process. Nice. Very, very nice.

And “home” again
It was time to return to Madrid before we were ready to leave, of course. However, G got a lot of work done on his laptop en route back (nice to have WiFi on the bus) while I alternately read a book and dozed. We were both a little pink from the sun, but what an excellent weekend!