220 kms to Lourdes

After a couple of rainy days in San Sebastian, the weather hasn´t improved much when we´re picking up our rental car. Bec thinks it´s a bit of a novelty to try to order our breakfast in Spanish and our lunch in French.

After 5 hours driving through pretty little towns in the French countryside, we finally reach Lourdes- our stop for the night, where Winter has returned and the mountains are white.

The next day we wake up to a beautiful morning (no rain and 8 degrees), and decide to go for a walk to check out the grand cathedral and the castle of Lourdes, which dates back to the 8th Century. Never in our lives have we seen so many nuns and monks, bustling down the streets, and shops filled with flashing flourescent lights shining on the statues of the Virgin Mary.

We would have loved to investigate this phenomenon more closely, but we needed to get into the car and be on our way.

Shivering in San Sebastian

We spend the afternoon wandering through the old part of San Sebastian and admiring the tiny cobbled streets and old churches. We duck into one of the many pintxo (tapas) places and are glad to be warm and cosy, despite the air full of smoke. We stroll from tavern to tavern and sip on tinto, and indulge in tortillas de patata, olives, and fresh bread.

To get away from all the smoke, we head out to the beach and stand with the icy wind freezing our core, watching the waves crashing up onto the beach and can hardly believe our eyes when two middle aged women in bikinis emerge from the water. We look at each other and decide to go for another glass of tinto and pintxo, to try and make sense of the strange vision...

Sopelana Beach

The last day we took the train out to the beaches around Bilbao and also had a look at where Martin used to live when studying here. We finished off the day in the street where there are so many bars they don´t have names, only numbers. People were out in force to support the local soccer team, El Athletic, and the energy was amazing.

Gobsmacked at the Guggenheim 2

Gobsmacked at the Guggenheim

Coming in on the bus, we were struck by the beauty of the Basque Country - green rolling hills, mountains shrouded in clouds, cobbled cottages dotting the countryside. It was a big shock to the system going from wearing thongs and shorts, to blowing smoke from your mouths with icy-cold northern winds.

The Guggenheim was definitiely the highlight - marvelling at the 12 meter high puppy made of flowers, cowering from the gigantic spider, being confused by the 150 sqm room full of concrete poo, playing silly buggers in the crazy mirror room and watching a cannon shoot 10 kg pellets of blood coloured wax into the corner of a massive white room.

After all the intense deciphering of abstract art, we felt ready for feasting on a fresh vegetarian buffet and enjoying $1.50 glasses of Tinto (red wine).

Gallery Galavanting 2

Gallery Galavanting

Because of the volcano, we had to cancel the first four days of the Spain trip. Still flying into Malaga in the south, we got on the bus to Madrid straight away. After 17 hours of mega-traveling, it felt fantastic to sink into a delicious $8 bottle of red, and then sink into bed.

We woke refreshed and ready for a gallery bonanza - three galleries in two days. Everything from 900 year old paintings to famous artists, like Picasso, Miró, Goya, Kandinsky, Chagall, Monet - the list goes on.

Tapas in the sunshine in the squares, watching flamenco dancing, admiring the artistic buskers on every corner, feeling the energy of the people all through th night - especially when Atlético Madrid knocked Liverpool out of the Europa League.