{"id":12248,"date":"2018-11-06T21:18:56","date_gmt":"2018-11-06T21:18:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sabbatical3.net\/blog\/?p=12248"},"modified":"2025-10-01T16:32:12","modified_gmt":"2025-10-01T16:32:12","slug":"side-trip-to-the-basque-country","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sabbatical3.net\/blog\/?p=12248","title":{"rendered":"Side Trip to the Basque Country"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Street in San Sebasti\u00c3\u00a1n (Donostia)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Canary Islands are a popular destination for European tourists and many discount airlines fly there from a number of mainland European cities.\u00a0 Last month we looked for cheap nonstop flights from Lanzarote and found one to Bilbao in Basque Country, so we bought tickets.\u00a0 On October 7, we flew into the Bilbao airport and took a 75 minute bus ride directly from there to San\u00a0Sebasti\u00c3\u00a1n, the cultural capital of the Spanish Basque region.\u00a0 We spent four days in\u00a0San Sebasti\u00c3\u00a1n followed by two days in\u00a0Hondarribia, a beautiful town that is the home town of our dear friend Irene.<\/p>\n

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Laura in the harbor of San Sebasti\u00c3\u00a1n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Statue in the harbor of San Sebasti\u00c3\u00a1n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

San Sebastian is considered by many to be the world\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s top food spot.\u00a0 It has\u00a0 more Michelin stars per capita than anywhere else in the world.\u00a0\u00a0But what makes\u00a0San Sebasti\u00c3\u00a1n (or Donostia as it is known in the Basque language) especially appealing is the quality of the everyday food, in particular the hundreds of pintxo bars.\u00a0 These are simple wine bars selling everything from traditional snacks to high-end gourmet dishes in small portions \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and with small prices.\u00a0\u00a0Going for pintxos means bar-hopping your way through the city, eating a few plates at each place before continuing.\u00a0 Everything is laid out on the bar for you to see before choosing,\u00a0 We almost always ordered\u00a0Spanish cider (or sidra<\/em>) as our accompanying drink.\u00a0 Sidra is\u00a0fermented naturally and has an alcohol content similar to beer.\u00a0 Spain has a custom known as “throwing the cider.” A server pours the cider from a height of approximately one meter to aerate and enhance the aroma and flavor of the cider.<\/p>\n

The weather was almost ideal the whole time we were in\u00a0San Sebasti\u00c3\u00a1n and the city was perfect for walking.\u00a0 We walked along the river, under a cliff face with breaking waves below, and along a long sandy beach. Plus, of course, through the beautiful old parts of the city.\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Pintxos, San Sebasti\u00c3\u00a1n<\/p>\n

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Fresh produce, San Sebasti\u00c3\u00a1n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Cathedral, San Sebasti\u00c3\u00a1n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Beach Promenade, San Sebasti\u00c3\u00a1n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Urumea River, San Sebasti\u00c3\u00a1n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Mark “throws the cider”, San Sebasti\u00c3\u00a1n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

On October 11, we picked up a rental car in\u00a0San Sebasti\u00c3\u00a1n and drove west along a beautiful high road that roughly followed the coast heading for the small coastal towns of Getaria and Zumaia.\u00a0 The greenery of the countryside was almost overwhelming for us after two months on the barren volcanic island of Lanzarote. Before dark, we turned and headed east to our next destination, the Basque town of Hondarribia, on the French border.\u00a0\u00a0Hondarribia has an ancient old quarter set on a hill with walls and a castle, and a newer section nearby with excellent pintxo bars.<\/p>\n

After two nights in Hondarribia we drove to Saint Emilion in Bordeaux and La Rochelle in Charente-Maritime.\u00a0 That trip is the subject of our next blog post.\u00a0 However, on the way back to catch our return flight from Bilbao, we stopped for the night at a cute hotel next to the Petritegi Cider House in Astigarraga (outside of San Sebasti\u00c3\u00a1n), where we had booked a meal.\u00a0 At the cider house, everyone sat on long benches next to “picnic” tables.\u00a0 We were served many courses of delicious local food plus all of the sidra we wanted.\u00a0 To get sidra, you left the dining hall and went to the large fermenting room where there were many numbered barrels of sidra, each slightly different. We pointed to the barrel we wished to sample, and a young man would pull a cork to let the sidra stream out into your glass held at least one meter away.\u00a0 A lot of sidra ended up on the floor but as we became more proficient at judging the stream, most wound up in our glass.\u00a0 Good thing the the hotel was just a 1\/2 mile walk away.<\/p>\n

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Green vistas on the high coastal road from San Sebasti\u00c3\u00a1n to Getaria<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Old Town, Hondarribia<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Old Town, Hondarribia<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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The Petritegi Cider House in Astigarraga (outside of San Sebasti\u00c3\u00a1n)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Throwing the cider from a barrel, Petritegi Cider House<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Laura in front of the entrance to the walled old city of Hondarribia<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Hatxeroa\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 Sapper Statue, Hondarribia<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Patatas Bravas, Hondarribia<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

M.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Canary Islands are a popular destination for European tourists and many discount airlines fly there from a number of mainland European cities.\u00a0 Last month we looked for cheap nonstop flights from Lanzarote and found one to Bilbao in Basque Country, so we bought tickets.\u00a0 On October 7, we flew into the Bilbao airport and … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Side Trip to the Basque Country”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12248","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spain-2018"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sabbatical3.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12248","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sabbatical3.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sabbatical3.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sabbatical3.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sabbatical3.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12248"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sabbatical3.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12248\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sabbatical3.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sabbatical3.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sabbatical3.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}