clouds

San Sebastian. Heart of the autonomous Basque region in Spain. When you say the word 'Basque,' many people will think of the separatist movement and the violence that came with it in the last fifty or sixty years. Officially, that ended last October, when the separatists called for an end to terror. Not necessarily an end to the struggle for independence though. That’s still very much a topic of conversation.

Not that you or I can understand that conversation. About half the people here are fluent in Basque and use it daily. When Ed spoke to a waiter about the food, the very affable man patted him on the back and said Ed spoke great Castilian. As in – what they speak over there, in central Spain.

To me, San Sebastian evokes memories of the first time I ever took my girls to Europe (they were eight and five then). We traveled on an overnight train from Madrid to Paris and I remember waking in the middle of the night to a long pause in San Sebastian. Shadows outside, eerie lights and stillness, followed by a lurch and a slow movement toward the French border, at a time when crossing a border in Europe still meant something.

Our own train pulled in from Barcelona on Monday, after 9 p.m. (one minute early!) and there was no sign of darkness yet.

We walk the ten minutes to our pension - the very inexpensive, very simple, very new, very white, very clean Pension Ondarra. (Just five very basic rooms on the second floor of an old apartment building in town.) We’re not in a hurry to eat – isn’t San Sebastian the tapas capital of the world? Don’t Basque people eat all day long and late into the night?

Though we don’t often include cities on our itineraries, San Sebastian is manageable. Somewhere between 250,000 and half a million, depending on where you draw the borders. And it has the great beauty of wide beaches with pounding Atlantic surf.  We are stopping here for three nights and the hope is that Ed, at some point, will enjoy some of that pounding surf.

So think of this place as two bays flanked by tall hills. Sort of like a small Rio de Janeiro. With two great beaches – a calmer one (La Concha) in the bigger bay and a somewhat wild one across the river, where we are – in the old working class or bohemian (not my choice of descriptors) section called Gros. I should mention the other two sections of San Sebastian (and I really should use its Basque name – Donostia, as that’s what most people here call it): they're the Old Town and the Romantic district and actually neither is very old as the city burned down many times over and was completely rebuilt in the 19^th century with all the ornamentation of that era. Think Rue de Rivoli, Paris.

There are indeed plenty of bars and tapas eating people. But here’s the thing – I keep forgetting that Ed really is not a great fan of the tapas noshing that takes place in Spain.

I never know how much to order! He complains. A sit down meal makes more sense! And I admit that going out for tapas (called pintxos in Basque -- most every word I see here has an 'x' in it!) is a challenge. We enter one bar and pick a small slice of bread with shrimp and a fried dumpling with seafood. Ed says – you eat it.

This wont work. So we search for 'real' food. And San Sebastian has great restaurants, starred treasurers that are not within our price range, but also humbler eateries. But we miscalculated the eating habits of people here. This isn't Catalonia anymore. Dinner is an earlier meal. More like 8:30 or 9. We're pushing 10 and 11 now. 

(Some evening views of La Concha and it's opening out onto the ocean.)

So it is quite fortunate that we do find an open place, a nice if modern spot where the genial waiter is happy to have us order a full dinner of appetizers...

...followed by the waiter's favorite (and I admit, I love this too) – paella with squid ink (hence the purple color) and seafoods.

We aren’t done until well after midnight. Our first Basque night and we can’t get the eating habits in line with local custom. Next day we’ll do better!

And next day is of course Tuesday and weather.com tells me it’s to be a sunny day, that indeed the sun is shining right now, except that when I look outside, I notice a low overhang of something that’s maybe cloud, maybe fog, but decisively obstructing any blue sky and, too, any summits that flank San Sebastian.

We eat breakfast at the café bar across the street. A café con leche for me with a chocolaty croissant and another chocolate speckled roll for Ed. We're back to the simple beginnings of bread product with coffee.

And we take a good look at the second beach, Gros beach -- our beach, just a five minute walk from our Pension.

The coast here is (they say) a surfer’s paradise. On most days. Today, there are plenty of surfers waiting for good waves that never quite seem to get it together. Still, we walk to the water’s edge just to watch the kids take to the boards (there are school groups here learning to surf).

There is a crazy abandon to these fresh and young surfers that I find so very compelling. They haven’t the grace yet of the more adult surfers, but they have quick, jerky movements that show off their imagination and agility. Of course, they crash into the surf again and again. Unfazed, they get right back on the boards and paddle out to try again.

Ed and I are not ready for a swim. I suggest a hike up one of the hills – the one to our side, you might say the lesser one – a touch wild, not that beloved (these days) by the locals (but as we find out – very much beloved by French hikers). I’m thinking – a 45 minute walk up, a good view and then back to town for further exploring.

So how is it that this evolved into a day long hike along the rugged coast, putting us in the neighboring port town of Pasaia?

Very early into the hike, the views back toward the Gros beach and, too, the city, are exquisite.

Here, let me zoom in a tiny bit so you can get a feel for this gorgeous sweep of sand and of the ribbon of surfers waiting, paddling, waiting...

But the trail then quickly plunges into a forest that obstructs further views. 

And when it opens up again, we see that we've rounded the hill and so the city is lost somewhere behind. 

And where are we anyway? We see a complicated sign. Ed takes out the iPhone and starts working on a translation. A French hiker coming towards us pauses and offers some information.

If you continue on this path, in a few hours you will be in the next town along the coast.

Is it a nice place?
An interesting port. And the climb is along the coast. Very nice.

And so we have a plan. And maybe no one is surprised that on our first day in the city, we are actually hiking outside the city, in the lonely quiet of a cliff side trail.

We make a detour to the peak of Monte Ulia. That was, after all, the initial destination. And I cannot say if it's the fault of the clouds or the fault of the trees that have sprouted at the summit, but the truth is you can't see anything at all from this peak.We spend some time sitting on a step watching a grandfather make a bow and arrow set for his grandson.

 

 And then we pick up the ridge trail again and continue the hike. This is when the clouds thin out.

We begin to feel the heat of the day. We're not prepared for a longer hike. We each have only one bottle of water (that fits in a pant pocket). But, the views are multiplying -- one beauty after another and it's really not that far now, just beyond this lighthouse...

There, down we go toward Pasaia. And let me say this about Pasaia: the entrance to the port is quite pretty.

And there are many reminders that we are in the Basque region:

...but in the end, Pasaia is a commercial port. The kind where freighters pull in and have scrap metal dumped into their hold. So, it's loud. (Sound carries over water)

We stay long enough to buy a very refreshing glass of freshly squeezed juice and catch the bus back to San Sebastian.

In the heat of a now almost sunny late afternoon (early evening?), people have flocked to the sands. The beaches are crowded, even as the waves are still insignificant, from a surfer's perspective.

Some are still waiting, paddling, waiting. Others take their boards and pedal home. Impressive how they can do that, through the busy streets of San Sebastian.

So should we swim? -- Ed asks.

Ice cream first. Then a brief rest...

And maybe it's because suddenly the air is sticky and very warm, or maybe it's because we (unexpectedly) hiked for a good four hours today, or, let's be honest -- maybe it's that the little white room with its small bed has superb WiFi -- for whatever reason, we never make it to the beach on this day.

We do remember the lesson from yesterday: don't wait too long for dinner. By 9 we're poking into bars and hunting down eateries and, too, taking in all the commotion, because here, as in Barcelona, as in perhaps most cities in Spain, you come out in the evening for a stroll. To walk, talk, drink, nibble, take in the street theater.

 It takes us a while (many false turns, disappointing discoveries, padlocked doors) to locate a dinner place. But there it is -- in the Old Town -- a really sweet little restaurant -- La Muralla. It has a simplicity to it that, for us, is very appealing. And it has a fixed price menu that's a steal. 

If there is any unfortunate part to this meal it is that I tell Ed that I think using a finger to assist in the clearing of a plate is perhaps not a great plan. (With a main course, he'll use bread for this, but as he points out, that is not an option with dessert.) Anyone who has seen the two of us in this mode where I give 'gentle' pointers on what is appropriate to do in public (or, more often, what is not appropriate to do in public) will I'm sure be smiling. Because you'd think that I will have learned by now that when I nudge him in his way, he responds with an impish continuation of exactly that which I suggest (again, 'gently') he might want to put off for another time.

So here's Ed, finishing a delicious chocolate dessert:

And here are the lights of San Sebastian as we cross the river to return to our sweet little white room in Gros.

thinking back

Turkeys and older people? Sunday morning? Such a long time ago! Somehow we jumped from an abundance of idle meanderings, to a short period of stress and now we’re on a train speeding  from one coast of Spain to the other and all I want to do is sleep. The comfort of not having to cope with traffic or weather or any of the usual skirmishes and issues of travel fills me with an urge to give in. Close my eyes and float.

There is a café bar on the train and after an hour of drifting, I rouse myself enough to walk over, buy a strong coffee and reach into my pack for the laptop.

Why this drowsiness? Not due to the efforts exerted in the last day or two. Nor because sleep in the quiet of our La Sala de Camos room was inadequate. Let me go back to that moment of waking on Sunday morning and by the time I bring us to this moment on the train, maybe you’ll see that something about the peculiar combination of minutes warrants this moment of drowsiness.

So turkeys, strutting over from the farm next door, making a racket that sounds like a child’s quick cry, one after another.

And, just before 9:30, the old door of the church by our window (it’s very close!) opens and after a few minutes, the bell chimes. I expected a loud call, but it isn’t that. Just enough to let you know the church doors are now open for business.

All this is very pleasant. I push back the lace curtain and watch the small group of people congregate. I doubt they came by cars. I hear no engines and I see no parking lot.

Breakfast in the Rectory (now Inn) hall. The couple who run this place (are they owners? I do not know. We asked and failed to understand the long explanation) split tasks and responsibilities. Her world is based in the kitchen and she brings out the cheeses and the toasted breads and because people here love their sausage, she puts out a board of these:

After breakfast, without much deliberation, we decide it’s time to go back to the sea. That’s not easy from this particular place. We are barely 40 kilometers away and yet Google tells me it’s a 45 minute drive. 

We go to the Lake Banyoles Tourist Office in the hope of getting better directions on how to exit the village and get to the sea. Between their instructions and the google instructions we get even more confused, in the end adding many minutes of road to our travels.

No matter. This quick trip to the Tourist Office gives us (if not great directions) a very lovely set of  minutes by the lake. The cool colors of the water make you forget that it actually is quite a warm day.

.

There is a small group of painters putting their own interpretations of this pretty scene to canvases and we look over their shoulder to see which we like best.

And then we get on those various twirling roads and now here we are by the sea.

At least I have no doubt which beach to go to. Of all the ones we’ve tried on the Costa Brava, I remember the very first one (of two years back) with greatest fondness. Yes, there is the usual parking problem (in Spain, any proximate place to leave your car requires a payment and so we don’t leave our car in proximate places), but the beach is spacious, so that even on a summer Sunday (and yes, it is summer!) you can find a corner for yourself.

And the water! I have to admit it – if I had kids, I’d bring them to this place (Sant Marti a Empuries). It stays waist deep for a long long time, without the tricky deeper drop offs of La Franqui. It satisfies the person who wants to swim, it satisfies the person who wants to play in the clear clean waters – it’s uniquely ... satisfying!

And so we swim, play a little, rest on the sands – all the good moments that we love north of here, delightfully replicated on this one beach that hasn’t (many of) the difficulties that I associate with the Costa Brava.

The drive back is finally along the proper roads and it’s becoming a pleasant drive because once you understand your surroundings, you can turn off your anxiety about finding the right left road or marking kilometers on the odometer.

And, too, the drive takes us past the always stunning fields of sunflowers. Up in the hills, they looked like this:

Our inn keeper explains that summer is late this year. But toward the coast, they look like this:

To me, Holland has her tulips, France – the vineyards, Spain – the sunflowers.

We’re back at the inn and Ed naps and I write and then I nudge him because it’s early evening – still a few hours towards dinner – and we promised ourselves one final hike – in the Catalan hills that border the lake. You might think that starting a hike after 6 is curious, but that’s how the day plays out and our hosts aren’t expecting us at the table until after 9.

We have a trail map and there is absolutely no reason to lose your way as it’s very well marked. It’s not a huge hike – can’t be more than two hours with an elevation of only 350 meters. And beautiful, absolutely beautiful in the burnt orange evening sunlight.

And yet, twice we lose the trail and I have to say that we are either extreme imbeciles at following markers or just very unlucky. No matter. A happy encounter with a woman and her dog sets us straight and soon we are at Pig Clara – from where the views are indeed stunning.

Ed says that this hike gives the most bang for the buck (meaning it surely gives satisfying views for being relatively undemanding) and he’s right. Not only are there mountain views to three sides...

... but, too, there is the lake below.

We are a tad rushed going down...


 



... but all’s well on this day as we come in just a few minutes after 9 and our hosts assure us that we are the only guests tonight and dinner is simple and ready for us. A rice, shrimp and pineapple salad, grilled chicken and zucchini and potatoes fried in delicious olive oil. With the most succulent melon (and pears and kiwi) for dessert.

And Monday morning is a leisurely affair as well. Our hosts fuss over us, fixing omelets and bringing baskets of toasted bread. No no, we do not eat the tomato here! She laughs as Ed is ready to bite into his. Rub it on the bread and drizzle it with olive oil!

We have our iPhone translator and we’re playing with it again since the voice recognition part has given us now a handful of correct translations, we’re trying to understand what leads it to work and what leads it to fail and it’s all so relaxed and very very pretty here at the rectory-turned-inn and we are in no great hurry because Barcelona is less than two hours away and the car is due back by 1:30. Our train out of Barcelona is at 3:30. All well timed, all perfectly relaxed.

By 11:25 we are on the road. I tell Ed that driving into Barcelona is a chore (even as driving out is quite easy), but Google is working for us and we take the correct turns and here we are zipping into the center of town in good stead.

Next right, he says, but only for 50 meters and then immediately left...

It’s hot and we’re not users of air conditioning in cars. Windows wide open, air passing through, nice, so nice. A motorcycle comes up to my side. Rapid Spanish. What? He points to the car. Oh fuck. I know what that means. Sure enough, another person points, they’re all pointing and they don’t even have to anymore because we feel it –the sound of a wheel with a punctured and perfectly flat tire.

We are 1.6 kilometers away from our destination, in dense Barcelona traffic, twenty minutes before the car’s due back, yes, all that, so close, so close!

Drive slowly, we’ll make it.

No. Cannot. It’s really flat.

Okay. I’ll change it. Ten minutes. I can do it. Pull over?

Where? Right here, on the street, because we are now the troubled drivers with a dysfunctional car so we can stop anywhere. We do and Ed switches into intense “I’m going to do this with great speed and precision” mode.

Crank the lug nuts, fast! – he shouts. And I don’t know a lug nut from a hickory nut, but it’s clear what has to be done and so here we are sprawled on the streets of Barcelona, flying through the switch and now it’s off, and the spare’s on!

I zip the remaining 1.6 kilometers to the Hertz garage and here, take your old clunker back, the car that, sensing our displeasure with it perhaps, let us down at the very end.

Four Hertz people stare at the wheel without air as if it was somehow unusual to get a flat. We wave and leave them to their contemplation.

I had emailed the wonderful Hotel Villa Emilia where we will be sleeping our final hours before our return flight takes off on July 4^th and asked if they’d store my carry on (filled with a half dozen bottles of rose wine from France) until then and predictably, they were ever agreeable. So we walk to the hotel and after freeing ourselves of everything but two backpacks and a small shoulder bag, we exhale.

And I offer to buy Ed lunch at the lovely and slick Villa Emilia bar, in grateful appreciation for his masterful and speedy tire change, but he isn’t hungry and so I treat myself instead. A tapas plate of grilled artichokes, bread with tomato and olive oil and that wonderful soothing flute of Cava.

And then, back we hike to the train station, a mere 25 minute stroll, even with packs and now we are on the train where I tried so hard to stay awake but what with the stress of the final minutes of car travel, I could not resist the freedom that is mine on the train, to do something or nothing, to listen to This American Life (we do that), or to catch up on Ocean writing.

It’s a five and a half hour train ride. By 9:08, we should be on the Atlantic coast, in San Sebastian.

Spanish but really Catalan

I tell Ed we must scrub the apartment clean before we leave. A gift to our landlords – so that the burden is less on them.

By 10, we hand over the keys and wave goodbye. Next year – there has to be a next year! What will change in our lives between now and then? Stay healthy and happy! As if we could fix it so that it could always be so...

We drive out of Sorede, pausing for an “on the road” breakfast at Le Feurnil. We’d been ogling the almond chocolate croissants, but nothing in life is predictable: they don't have them this morning! The sweet reward is that we, therefore, discover these little buns with raisins and chocolate and if there is a heavenly breakfast (as opposed to a healthy breakfast – they don’t always coincide) it is this (chewy!) bread roll with a café crème.

One La Patrie baguette for the road,

...a final look a the line of weekend bread starved customers,

...and we get on the big highway that puts us south of the Pyrenees, into the heart of Spanish Catalonia. Funny how that works. Good bye French Catalonia, hello Spanish one.

As in previous years, we take a few days here – in between days, days for poking around the Catalan speaking villages. We’ve given time to towns by the sea, and some time to the mountain villages this side of the border, where to now?

Deep into the countryside...

... far from mountains, not too close to the sea either – in the tiny hamlet of Camos, there is an old, old church and right across from it – a rectory, converted now to a rural something or other (called La Sala de Camos) – not really bed and breakfast because they also cook dinners. So we’re here for two nights. It’s a favorite for Barcelona people who want to escape the crowds for a weekend, or a couple of nights.

It takes us a while to find the place. As we finally drive up the dirt road, we’re greeted by an angry turkey who attacks cars.

I can’t move! He keeps running in front, straight at the car! Can you chase him away?

It takes a long while for the turkey to haughtily stalk off and rejoin his turkey friends on the farm across the road.

The inn keeper tells us – loco pavo! He has an obsession with cars!  

We are just a few kilometers from the biggest lake in the region – Lake Banyoles. I'm hoping it offers some swimming opportunities. Not that we can find our way there either.  A few wrong turns and we end up on narrow roads trailing into the hills.

You are such an optimist! Not a chance that it is up this road. Turn around!

I try. Off pavement, back on, the car lets out a groan as I scrape its belly. Ed laughs. This is my second folly of the day, having already managed to drive over the curb when pulling into the parking lot at Le Feurnil. That, too, caused the undersides to groan.  Ed tells me we’re even now – I’ve caught up to his driving into a ditch in Sardinia and, too, the pulling off of a side mirror in a crazy turn in Sicily.

I let him chuckle. Lately, I’m doing 99% of the driving because I don’t like his pace, especially on the narrow winding roads. Of course I’m going to bump elevated asphalt ridges if I’m at the wheel!

Ha ha ha! – that’s from Ed. He can have a hearty laugh.

Did I do damage? 

He inspects the car. Nothing that can’t be snapped back on!

All I can say is the clunker has a very low bottom.

And now it’s my turn to laugh. Tired of having me ask “what does this mean” when we're in Spain, Ed (who does not himself own a cell phone) has commandeered my iPhone and loaded it with a Spanish dictionary app.  We really splurged: it cost us $5.

The dictionary component is far better than the free ones we tried first, but the voice recognition part – where you speak your words and you get the translation – well, it’s random! Say one word or one phrase and you get a translation that’s not even close. I tell him the problem is his booming voice. I take a turn. No, not any better.

We spend a good number of minutes feeding it words to see what comes out. Each translation seems funnier than the previous one. 

It strikes me now (but not for the first time), that Ed is an easy traveling companion. Neither one of us is prone toward moodiness, but I have also come to appreciate it when each predicament or false step usually results in nothing more than a good chuckle. And in between, we revel in a gentle quiet.

As we drive now finally toward the lake, I ask Ed to translate a road sign. He tells me – Nothing is written in Spanish here. We put away the iPhone. Catalan is the preferred language. Spanish a very distant second. English? No, not at all.

Lake Banyoles has about a 6 mile shore line. It takes us two hours to walk around it. When the Olympics came to Barcelona (2004), the rowing championships were held here. It’s a pretty lake – with clear, clean waters. (Note the designated rowing lanes in the second photo.)

Surprisingly, even though it's a lovely Saturday afternoon, not many are by it, on it, in it. People must prefer the sandy beaches of the sea.

There are a few private huts by the water’s edge and there is a designated public swimming area. We pause there for a swim and to eat our bread and left over (very runny in the heat!) cheeses.

The small crowd at this almost pool-like shore front (there are steps leading into the water, which is even at the shore, some five feet deep) is truly an mixture. A group of young adults, shrieking as one pushes the other, clothes on, into the water.


 


A group of boys, dangling a hand or a leg in the water.





And then come the hippies (or is the term hippie reserved for America?) with the locks of long hair and a toddler in tow. They all strip to complete nakedness and plunge into the water. A few of the boys giggle as the young man emerges and, like a dog, shakes off water. No one else seems to notice.

After a swim, we continue our hike along the lake front. Ed comments that the trail is a little reminiscent of the lake shore path in Madison, only this lake hasn’t the smell of algae.


 


And if you look to the shore, there is nothing Madison-like in our surroundings.

Our dinner is late. French Catalans call it a day by ten. Spanish Catalans merely begin their evening then. 

We have a very delicious zucchini wild mushroom and tiny shrimp dish...

...and since we both asked for fish (Ed wont eat lamb or veal which were offered as the other possibilities), the kitchen came up with two different ones -- bass for him, salmon for me (we split and shared each). With fruit and ice cream for dessert.

It’s Sant Joan Eve. In Sorede they’re dancing. Here, you can listen to the firecrackers in the distance. The innkeeper (whose name also happens to be Joan – which is Catalan for John) opens a bottle of Cava and brings out slices of the traditional yeasty cake. We munch this outside, in the quiet of the courtyard. One of the guests speaks a modest amount of English. What brings you here? – she asks. Americans don’t typically pick isolated rural spots for their travels and people are always surprised to run into us there. Understandably so: there’s so much to see in the towns and cities!

It’s hard to explain why we’re drawn to the quiet of the countryside, why we would find a walk up a mountain or around the lake so satisfying that we’ll nearly always pick it over a trip into a bigger, richer, more imposing urban center. (I say “nearly,” because we have some exceptions to that rule, coming up!)

Is it midnight by the time we retire to the room that faces the church entrance. It’s utterly quiet outside. The church bell rings only once a week -- Sunday morning, in time for mass. Even before that, the turkeys will come to our window and make an early morning racket. But that's the next day. Right now, at midnight, it's quiet.