A San Sebastian Weekend

Sometimes it feels like I've spent the past 3 months in constant motion: Bilbao, Madrid, Barcelona, Burgos, León, Galicia, Portugal, Salamanca. Other times I realize that there's so much I haven't seen, I better get a move on, especially since there's only 6 weeks left of our trip.
So, I jumped at the chance to visit San Sebastian for a long weekend, a special invitation since I was included in a house party, along with David and Amy, hosted by their great and good friends Koldo and Merche. David met Koldo through a language exchange when David was teaching in San Sebastian. That was about 5 years ago and they have been fast friends ever since.
The bus to San Sebastian from Bilbao takes about an 70 minutes and although that's on the autopista, you do get to see some lovely countryside. No suburbs here; you leave the city and hit the countryside until you hit the next town or city.

Koldo had made plans for us to visit a traditional cider house outside San Sebastian. The cider is made from local apples, fermented in huge oak or chestnut barrels and is slightly alcoholic. About the same alcohol content as beer. The cider ferments from October until the end of May, at which point the cider that hasn't been consumed is bottled and sold. So there's really only a brief window, January through May, where you can eat, drink and be merry at one of these very traditional Basque venues.

Usually the cider house owner opens different barrels throughout the night, and everyone rushes to the barrels. Filling your glass is quite the art; my hands were sticky by the end of the night. Each barrel tastes different and you soon have a favorite one you return to again and again.

The idea is to oxygenate the cider 

 

so there's a slight effervescence

 

There's no need to look at a menu; in addition to all the cider you can drink, you get fresh bread, bacalao (cod) with peppers, tortilla with bacalao, [bacalao with bacalao] a steak as big as a hub cap (really really rare!), and nuts and cheese for dessert. You have individual forks, but eat off 1 big plate that's placed in the center of the table. What a great dish saving idea! I might adopt this at home! Great fun, lots of  people watching, and very traditional.
The next day stopped for a view of the beach and the impressive sculpture called El Peine del Viento (The Wind's Comb) and then we took a hike along a ridge west of the city. It was a beautiful spring day and I enjoyed the familiar plants (fennel, nettles, clematis to name a few) and the SUN. It reminded me of walking in Oregon.

El Peine del Viento

Koldo, Merche, David and Amy

San Sebastian

The day wouldn't have been complete without a trip to San Sebastian's bars which are famous for their delicious and creative pintxos:

That meant than we had to walk off the calories the following day. Koldo drove to a small port where we took a water taxi across the harbor to the hillside town of Donibane. I particularly liked their emblem or shield. If you enlarge this you can see that the mermaid also has angel wings. Merche said they were just covering all their bases.

Hey Tom, I'm on the Camino too!

We wandered through the narrow cobblestone streets and then along a pathway toward the mouth of the harbor. It was beautiful. I had to ask Merche for the word for homesickness. It's 'nostalgia'. El paisaje me da nostalgia-the countryside makes me homesick.

Before we left on Sunday afternoon, Koldo had arranged a special treat for us: lunch in his txoko-gastronomic or eating club. This is a relatively recent addition to Basque culture: men-only private clubs where groups of friends meet to cook, eat and relax together. Women can be invited for dinner, but they are forbidden to enter the kitchen. Rather ironically, women are hired to clean up after the chefs! As we know, Basque men are pretty fantastic cooks and many of them honed their skills in txokos.
Kaldo's txoko, Olagorra,was founded in  1906. There are about 100 members and a long waiting list of potential members.

Lunch was yummy and included morcilla de Burgos with sauteed piquillo peppers. This blood sausage is made with rice, making it vastly superior to the blood sausage one thinks of as part of an Irish breakfast (sorry Irish breakfast fans!). What a kitchen-I could barely keep myself out of it. First gas range I've seen in a long time.

Just a couple of photos to round out the visit to San Sebastian, and a sincere thank you to Merche and Koldo for putting up with my bad Spanish for an entire weekend.

Why don't more men dress like the fellow in the hat?

When we returned to Bilbao, I walked back from the bus station, thinking, what could be more perfect than this lovely city?