Category: Basque Country-Navarre

We have retraced our steps a little bit to visit Laredo. Last night we realized we had another month of free traveling and didn’t need to rush south. The coastal region we are in has several small towns that caught Ton’s eye so we decided to visit one.

We first considered visiting a small town called Santillana del Mar. We were intrigued because it is called the city of three lies, Santa in Spanish can be interpreted as holy, the city is not holy, Llana in Spanish means flat and the town is extremely hilly, del Mer means by the sea, and the town is not next to the sea. While it is pretty we decided to just drive through it rather than stop.

We turned up at a nice river side campground near Laredo. After setting up we took a little break before deciding to head into town. We have become big users of public transport in Europe and usually it is very convenient and inexpensive. But Laredo as we learned the hard way is the exception.

The nearest bus stop was 700 meters away and the bus ran once an hour. I put Laredo into google maps expecting it to give me the city center and it said it was 2000 meters. Two kilometers is usually the maximum length of our planned walks so I convinced Ton to walk instead of taking the bus.

After about 35 minutes we arrived to what google said was Laredo and we were on a nondescript street surrounded by apartments. This was not the picturesque old town we were expecting. I found a restaurant that was in the old town and it turned out it was another 2 kilometers away. Ton gave me a bit of side eye and I deserved it, but we were now committed. We had never seen the one bus that is the municipal bus service for Laredo, google maps denied it existed and none of our ride share apps offered service. So we continued on foot. I told Ton we would find the bus when we got to the commercial district.

We finally arrived at the old town. It was nice, but it is really important in Spanish cities to catch them in the middle of the day or the evening. From 3 to 6 pm they are kind of dead. We found a nice cafe that was open in the dead time and ordered the two local specialties Anchovies and Calamari. They were both excellent.

After the restaurant we headed to the bus station where I hoped I would find the bus that was rumored to run to near the campground, or a taxi. The bus station was not for local traffic but for long distance buses; if there was a city bus I couldn’t find it nor could I find a human being to ask about local buses. Nor were there any taxi’s. At this point I told Ton our only option was a 4 kilometer walk back to the campground. She wasn’t happy with me, but she was a good trooper and set off. Just to rub salt in my wounds about 10 minutes from the end of our hour hike back to the campground the only taxi (I presume) in Laredo passed us on a dirt road we were trudging down.

So Laredo didn’t make as good as impression on us as it would have if we could have cracked the code on transportation. But after we returned to François our Irish/Australian neighbors saved the day. We overheard them telling our British neighbors that the sunset was glorious on the beach next to the campground. So we headed over there at sunset and they asked us to sit down with them and share a glass of wine. It turns out they were celebrating there 40th anniversary and we were privileged to join them in the celebration. We had a wonderful hour long conversation about kids, traveling, and life that turned what had been a pretty mediocre day into a very good one.

Early in the trip Ton handed me a list of places that she wanted to visit in Basque Country, and Comillas was underlined. Comillas is a small town on the coast with a beautiful beach and a quaint town center, but what made Comillas a must see for Ton was a very accessible home designed by Gaudi.

We are both fans of Gaudi and really enjoyed the Sagrada Familia when we visited Barcelona. We also walked past several of his other designs in Barcelona. The El Capricho is the first design beside the vast Sagrada that we were able to see the interior as well as the exterior.

Gaudi was commissioned to build the home by Maximo Diaz de Quijano who was a prominent lawyer and amateur musician. Diaz de Quijano was impressed with Gaudi’s vision of a more natural architecture with high craftsmanship in all details of the home.

The flow of the rooms reflect Gaudi’s belief in working with nature. The bedroom faces the sunrise, and the rooms flow with the sun through the day. The office is next to the bedroom, the living room is sited to take advantage of the afternoon light, and this being Spain the dining room was sited to take in the sunset.

The main floor rooms are well crafted and solid reflecting the social status of Diaz de Quijano. But the for me the more interesting and beautiful rooms were those in the attic where the servants lived. They have an airy and open feeling that I appealing .

Gaudi also designed furniture and the home was full of examples of his designs for chairs. They also have flowing lines and references to nature.

There were little touches and whimsies throughout the house. Stain glass widows depicting birds, the railing on the watch tower made of wrought iron treble clefs in reference to Diaz de Quijano’s love of music.

The final piece that really makes the home stand out is the watch tower that is designed to look like a Persian minaret. I don’t think there is a practical purpose to it, but it makes the home stand out from it’s neighbors.

Gaudi also designed the gardens to go with the home. He included a man made grotto and a horsehoe shaped front garden. The plants in the garden were designed to blend with the colors of the home.

The building went through some ups and downs in its history. The Diaz de Quijano family sold it after about 50 years. As you can imagine the upkeep was immense on the home, and over time it became run down. By the late 1960’s it was in danger of being torn down. Fortunately an owner was found who converted it into a restaurant that kept the building afloat for about 20 years.

The current owners purchased it when it was a restaurant but decided that it was not an appropriate way to maintain the building. Their intent is to restore it to its original build. It was not as easy as you would think as the original design documents were destroyed. A team studied written accounts and photographs to try to understand the exact layout and today’s museum reflects that research.

To get to the museum we had a pretty good hike as we opted to save money by staying in an aire outside of town rather than the campground on the ocean. As a result we got to enjoy Comillas in its entirety.

Comillas is a very nice town with a sleepy feel to it. But that may have been because we were there during the siesta. It may be quite lively at night.

Before 1997 Bilbao was known as the steel city of Spain. In the 1990’s the city was trying to find a way of participating in the booming tourism scene in Spain so they told the Guggenheim foundation they would fund a museum of modern art in Bilbao if the family would help develop it. In 1997 the Guggenheim museum was opened to the public.

Initially there was some negative reaction to the Americaness of the project. The Guggenheim’s are American, and the architect for the project was also American. But the finished building is strikingly beautiful, and the art inside curated by the Guggenheim foundation is drawing large crowds.

We walked around the building taking in the exterior which is flowing and non-angular. The titanium exterior changes colors based on the natural light and contributes to the natural feel of the building.

The last feature on the exterior is a giant topiary designed by another American of a dog. It is not a serious piece of art but blends in well with the sense of the building.

When you enter the museum you are greeted by an immense atrium that goes up over 150 feet. It is a mix of metal and glass and feels like it is cascading down from the ceiling.

The building is a work of art in itself. Inside are permanent and rotating exhibits reflecting its focus on contemporary art. On the first floor is a giant hall of steel plate structures that is both simple and moving. One structure is a circular path that ends in an empty place that struck me as whimsical. You keep walking expecting to be rewarded at the end, but the reward is in the journey, not the destination. It seemed appropriate to our life as long term tourists.

There are several more of these steel structures with different shapes and stories. At the end there was a video showing the shaping of the steel plates on a giant press that may have been used to make steel forms for ships or other large structures. Besides being beautiful it paid homage to Bilbao’s history.

The main traveling expedition was a retrospective on an American painter name Jasper Johns. There were well over 100 of his paintings and sculptures displayed. It is obvious that he was a very talented artist. The paintings were interesting and the craft that went into the execution was superb. I enjoyed exploring his works though they did not capture my imagination.

We spent several hours going through the museum. It is an amazing place and is now visited by millions of people each year. The museum did put Bilbao on the map as more than a steel town.

On the way to the museum we intentionally took a long walk along the Nerbioi River that splits the old town, and the Abando district. As we spent more time strolling along the river the town won me over.

The walk convinced me that my negative impression of the city yesterday was wrong. The longer we walked the more charmed I became. What I really liked was how well blended different architectural styles and eras were blended together. It was not a monolithic city but one with a fun diversity of styles.

After the Guggenheim we had some more excellent Pinxtos at a nice old bar in the commercial district of the city. Ton has been trying to find Txangurro crabs since we arrived in Basque country. Today we finally did and the Pinxto made from them was delicious.

After 3 aborted attempts to visit Bilbao we were determined to finally see it today. Armed with the location of an aire that doesn’t take reservations we left early from Vitoria. But Bilbao has a Costco so we took a chance on getting into the aire, to stop there first.

For the first time this trip we paid less than €2.00 per liter (very approximately $10 per gallon), substantially less in fact. That alone made the stop worthwhile. Than we spent an hour inside debating what would fit in François tiny fridge and cupboards. It is always a frustrating experiencing having to leave some very delicious looking things behind because they are too big to fit.

We finally headed up to the aire which has a spectacular view of the city from above. We pulled up and were assigned a space right away. We were planning on spending 3 days here, but were told there was a 48 hour limit. So instead of relaxing for a couple of hours we headed straight into the city.

Whenever there is a market to see it will be one of the first places we will go in the city. We arrived a little late and most of the food stalls had closed. The building itself was fun to explore and we really liked the stained glass windows on offer.

The food hall was still open so we checked it out and planned the rest of our stay here. We didn’t eat, but shared a table with a young couple who raised their glasses in toast when we sat down.

The main thing we accomplished at the market was to purchase our tickets for the Guggenheim museum for tomorrow. Ton then identified a couple of key points of interest for me to punch into maps and we were off on our walking tour of Bilbao.

Bilbao has historically been one of the main industrial cities in Spain. You can see that this is a city built on making things. The center of the city is gentrified, but the rest of the city retains its industrial feel. It is the largest city in the Basque country and is very proud of its heritage. In fact the local soccer team only recruits players from the Basque country or of Basque heritage from overseas. Luckily for them Basques make good soccer players and they are competitive in the Spanish league.

We enjoyed our walk through Bilbao, but our travels have taught us that we like small towns and medium sized cities better than big bustling cities. Bilbao is a little on the large size for us.

After a few hours exploring Ton asked how far to the nearest bus stop and I pointed across the street. I checked the schedule and the next bus was in two minutes, so our first day in Bilbao was a few minutes shorter than planned.

We had no expectations about Vitoria. We picked it because we were looking for a place to wait for a day before we head into Bilbao. Ton read somewhere that they had the best preserved medieval center in Basque country, so we decided to check it out today. I almost waived off Vitoria because it doesn’t have a campground, but the city provides two aires that were both well reviewed- so Vitoria was on.

Vitoria made an interesting first impression. The road to the aire was a wide boulevard with trees down the middle. The apartments and offices on either side looked like they had been built in the last 20 years and had interesting designs that suited our taste. It did not look like the medieval city we were expecting. It made a good first impression on us because it was not what we were expecting.

The Autocaravanas Parking occupied one end of a municipal parking lot as is common in Europe. It requires a small fee to use and we pulled up to a barrier that we had to negotiate. A quick look showed that it required an app, I downloaded the app and put in the usual information, the last step to activate was for them to send a pin by text. I never got the pin. I tried several times but could not get the pin. While I was troubleshooting this I had a French lady come over and pepper me with questions (in French) while smoking, she didn’t hear my apology for not speaking French the first time so the questions kept coming while I messed with the app. The second time I broke out my “Sorry I am American and don’t speak French” in French, she understood and looking disappointed wandered off.

After another 15 minutes of Ton and I using both of our phones to try to gain entry, and sending a whatsapp to the app developer we finally got the pin we needed to pay the aire. The problem turned out to be our US phone numbers as the app doesn’t want to pay international text rates.

Having conquered technology we decided to head into the city for the afternoon. We arrived at the tram spot just as the very sleek and modern tram pulled up. These days most trams and buses have pay stations on them so I told Ton to hop on and I went looking for the pay station. It turns out this time Vitoria is bucking the technology trend and still requires paper tickets you purchase before you get on. So now we were scofflaws. Fortunately the ticket police didn’t check and we got away with it while feeling guilty.

The old town is well preserved and nicely compact. The street going to it was full of large street art murals that Ton loves. We spent a good deal of time climbing the steep street and taking in the art. After we got into the old town we noticed the next street over had escalators going up the hill to deliver you to the top without the climb. This is a modern feature we have seen a few other times in Spain.

Ton kept commenting about how Vitoria had a nice small town feel. I agreed with her but I also pointed out that I don’t think it is a small town, as small towns don’t have tram lines. Later Ton confirmed that the population was 260,000 people.

After spending an hour in the quiet old town, Ton handed me the name of a restaurant to find. It had the simple name that translates into English as Restaurant #7. Walking to Restaurant #7 we descended into the modern city and found a street full of cafes, restaurants, and Pinxto bars and many of the people of Vitoria out enjoying the blue skies and perfect temperatures.

We arrived at Restaurant #7 and all the outside tables were full, but there was room inside and we managed to get a table. This restaurant had a four course menu of the day with a bottle of wine for €23. The menu was in Spanish only, but I got our drinks going in Spanish. The rest of the interaction with the waiter was in Spanish and though I suspect his English is better than my Spanish he made an effort to keep me in Spanish by coaching me a bit. It added to a good experience. We each picked a different dish for each course and they were all wonderful. Restaurant #7 has set the bar high for service, atmosphere and food for the rest of the trip.

We were very full and a bottle of wine is a big commitment for the two of us these days so after finishing the meal we walked it off for about 20 minutes before we decided to head back to François. This time I purchased our tickets, but after boarding realized I had not validated the ticket as required; so once again we had to sweat the fare police until we got off. The next time we ride the tram in Vitoria I will get it right.

Vitoria was a wonderful surprise for us. The kind of place we look forward to when we travel because it has history we don’t know, but feels like a place that is lived in, and not just looked at.

We woke up to a beautiful sunny day just as predicted. We headed into town early to continue our Pinxto crawl. San Sebastian has really made its name as a foody city for good reason. We have not had a bad dish in our three trips here.

Pinxto bars are very informal, they are bars and at the bar there are small plates of various dishes. You just point at what you want they hand it to you and you head to a table to eat. It makes for a very informal operation, but the key thing is that the small dishes are delicious.

So today we spent the day stopping at a Pinxto bar for no more than two Pinxto’s with a beverage to wash it down, then going out and walking the town to take in a site. We repeated that process three times visiting a different bar each time, to complete a very satisfying day.

When we first came to San Sebastian 8 years ago it was a tourist centered town, but since then it has become a hot town for tourism. The bars were all a little busier than we remembered from our first visit. But despite being busier the places still have retained the character and quality that impressed us the first time we came.

There was a lot more activity around town associated with the film festival today than yesterday. I was on the lookout for stars, but didn’t see any.

Today was the most walking of the trip, despite the old town being pretty compact. We just enjoyed strolling the streets taking in the sites and people watching. It allowed us to walk off our Pinxtos as well as the samples of Beer, Vermouth, Cider, Sangria, and Gin we tried today.

As we were walking we discussed how some towns just have a feeling that makes you want to relax and enjoy life. San Sebastian is definitely one of those. We could spend several more days just strolling the streets, sampling the good food and people watching. But alas we are going to move on tomorrow.

The weather was supposed to be better than yesterday, but it wasn’t. The rain started around midnight and was still going when we woke up. It kind of put a damper on our plans for going into San Sebastian today. But, Ton did some research and found the San Telmo Museum had a well reviewed Goya exhibition so we had somewhere to go in the rain.

But our first stop was to get some Basque cheese cake that Ton had been looking forward to since we arrived. The cheese cake was invented at La Vina bar and the word was to get there early before the line forms. Luckily for us early means before 1pm in Spain so we were able to get in and share a table with a Japanese couple. The cake lived up to Ton’s high expectations and I also give it a thumbs up. This is not something you should often eat as the recipe calls for 2.2 pounds of cream cheese, 2 cups of sugar, 7 eggs, 2 cups of heavy cream, and 1 tablespoon of flour. It has a flan like texture that makes it distinctive and delicious.

Having taken care of our dessert we decided it was time for some main courses. The thing to do in San Sebastian is a Pintxos crawl, which is like a pub crawl but with food instead of alcohol (sometimes food and alcohol). We moved down the street to a bar that Ton had read about and this time we were seated with a French couple. One of the nice things in Spain is if a table with 4 tables only has two people the restaurants have no problem seating another couple at the table. We had three Pintxos which are small plates like Dim Sum in China. They were all delicious.

The San Telmo museum is an art museum and a Basque cultural museum. The main exhibition was a series of 80 Goya ink drawings known as the black Goya’s. These drawings reflect the conditions during the Napoleonic war and the return to the absolute monarchy after the war. The subject matter is very dark showing the horrors of war and repression in a very explicit way.

He did these drawings in secret as he knew they would not be approved by the post war royalist government. They were discovered after his death.

We spent over an hour looking at all 80 drawings. Some are very graphic depicting executions, mutilations, and rape. For this era when war was glorified they are a striking anti-war statement by one of the greatest Spanish artists.

There was another gallery of pen and ink drawings from famous artists including Picasso, Rodin, Dali, and Goya. There was no theme to the drawings just examples of different artists sketches. We really enjoyed this.

There were two good galleries of Spanish artists we had not heard of that we found interesting. After the art there was an exhibition highlighting the history of the Basques and their role in Spain. There were several audiovisual exhibitions that we sat through that educated us on the role the Basques have played in key parts of history.

Unfortunately, part of the museum was closed in preparation for the 100th annual San Sebastian Film Festival which kicks off today, so we missed out on a couple of good exhibitions. The San Telmo is an excellent museum and it turns out we were lucky the rain drove us in there as we would have missed out on a good day.

Our day was a simple one, we shifted about 350 kilometers south to Spain. It was an easy drive. We have a favorite camp ground we usually stay at near San Sebastian that we usually just show up for. But based on how busy campgrounds have been, the one we stayed at last night was probably 80% full by nightfall, I decided to try to book our favorite campground in advance. It was a good thing I checked as it was full. We looked for a plan B and found a campground on top of a pretty good sized mountain near San Sebastian and I booked a place for two nights. When we arrived today they were turning people away without reservations.

We are finding that shoulder season is becoming busier and busier. When we first started traveling here it never occurred to us to book anything. We would just show up and were always able to get a place. More and more near popular places we are booking in advance.

We spent the afternoon relaxing and will head into town tomorrow.

Our charge down the atlantic coast to southern Spain continued with a 480 kilometer drive. The drive was nice and uneventful if. It was uneventful enough that we decided to tack an extra 150 kilometers on the plan to go to Orio in Spain because we like the campground here.

We started in rain in Poitiers, then after about an hour the rain stopped and we had blue skies for most of the trip until we arrived at the campground in northern Spain when the rain began again.

We are a little tired from the driving as we usually don’t travel this way in Europe. But we are feeling pressure to get to Morocco so we have a couple of more days of long trips. Lets hope Morocco rewards our effort.

We decided to have a laid back day today so we did not plan to leave Orio. We spent the morning doing some light chores around François before heading into town for lunch.

Our neighbor had recommended a restaurant to try, and about 1:45 we started into town to get lunch as it is served later in Spain than we are used to at home. We arrived and ordered a three course lunch with a starter, a main course, and a desert for €13. The waitress spoke limited English, and I can read limited Spanish, she left us her notebook with the options (there were 4 starters, and 4 main courses to pick from), between the three of us we eventually figured out the options and we were served an excellent lunch. After we placed our order the waitress asked us if we wanted water or wine, when we said wine she returned with a bottle of wine and put it in the center of the table. It was included in the €13.

After lunch we decided to take a stroll thru town to burn off some of the food. We also unsuccessfully cased another grocery store looking for Basque Vermouth. On our way back to the campground we saw 2 oxen yoked together with red masks covering their eyes being led from a barn. There happened to be a bench nearby so we sat down to see what was going to happen. Eventually, they hitched the two oxen to a sled and placed a couple of large rocks on it, then a grandfather and we presume his grandson got on the sled, and the boys father led the bulls down the field.

The bulls were being trained for a Basque sport called Idi Probak. The contest consists of having two ox yoked together at the horns, (if you look carefully at the picture you can see their horns are interlocked.) then heavy rocks are put on a sled, and the ox have to drag the rocks, the sled, and a driver around an oval for 30 minutes to 2 hours. The problem is that the way the ox are yoked together makes it difficult for them to pull in a straight line unless they are well trained, so the driver and another person who walks in front have to work hard to keep the ox on track and moving. The winners are determined by who covers the most distance and carries the most weight in the time period allotted.

After we returned we took it easy for the rest of the day. I spent some time chatting with our Irish neighbor about life while Ton watched some movies on Netflix.

We took our time leaving in the morning as we were hoping that the traffic in Bordeaux would die down. We have experienced more traffic jams passing thru Bordeaux than any city in France including Paris. So we lingered around the campground until 10 am hoping, but we still ran into a lot of slow traffic in Bordeaux. It wasn’t as bad as some of our other trips but it was slow crossing the city.

Once we broke out of Bordeaux the remainder of the trip was smooth sailing and we arrived at one of our favorite campsites in Orio Spain about 1:30. We had made reservations in advance, so check in was smooth, and we were settled in by 2pm. Our neighbors were Irish and English so we had a chat. with them.

Later in the afternoon we had a stroll into Orio for some recreational shopping. When we returned we were invited by the Irish neighbor to join him in the campground bar for an after dinner beer.

The drink turned into several, and we had a nice time learning about his very interesting life as first a Catholic Priest, and then a teacher in Ireland. Just as we were about to leave, our English neighbors arrived so we enjoyed some more time swapping stories about life in general and traveling in Europe. It was a late (for us), but enjoyable evening.

There comes a point in every trip that marks the beginning of the end, and that is the day where the first priority in deciding where to go is moving us closer to the airport. That day was today for this trip. Todays destination was based on getting us about 300km’s closer to Paris, and hopefully finding somewhere interesting.

We are located close to Biarritz which is a famous seaside resort in southern France. We are only about 20km’s north of San Sebastian in Spain which is one of our favorite cities. We decided to check on the French side of the Basque country to see how France influenced Pinxtos which is one of our favorite foods.

The only problem was Spain had spoiled us with perfect weather for so long that we didn’t check the weather forecast and about 100 km’s before we arrived it started raining heavily and didn’t let up. So our investigation of the influence of French cooking on Basque cuisine will have to wait.

Today is going to be short and sweet. We decided to take advantage of the excellent facilities here at Orio Kanpina to take care of some chores. So today consisted of cleaning the inside of François, and wash our clothes.

The highlight of the day was a trip into town to pick up a light load of groceries. Otherwise we spent the remainder of the day lounging around watching the Spanish families enjoying their weekend, and watching movies on Netflix.

We picked Orio for our destination because we like the campground, but also because it is a convenient place to visit San Sebastian-Donostia. This is our second time here, last time San Sebastian was one of our surprises of Spain. Neither of us had really heard much about it, and we really enjoyed it. It was our first exposure to the Basque Pinxtos, which are small bite sized sandwiches which we really enjoyed. Ton remembers the Pinxtos in San Sebastian as the best she had in Spain. Ton often says that the real test of a place is if the second visit is as good as the memories of the first. We were going to test that today.

The weather was much better than forecast so that was a good first step in the test. The stroll down to the waterfront was pleasant, and the beach was pretty, though less crowded than last time because it is about 15 degrees cooler. To make up for the lack of crowds there was some cool beach art in the sand. Our primary target for the day was the old town and Pinxtos. We spent about an hour exploring the old town looking for the perfect Pinxto spot. The old town here has a very nice character and is a great place to stroll and people watch. We enjoyed ourselves, and both of us noticed that for the first time since we left Paris, we heard other Americans as we walked down the street.

The place we settled on for Pinxtos did not disappoint. The big change from last time is that they no longer put the Pinxtos right on the bar and you go along and pick what you want self-service. Now they are under plexiglass, and someone has to pick them for you. We assume this is because of covid.

The bottom line on San Sebastian, is that it passed the second visit test. We were not as aggressive in our plans as the first trip when we explored both sides of the river, and climbed the hill above town to the fort. But, we enjoyed strolling through downtown and the old town, and the Pinxtos were still delicious.

Mission accomplished we headed back to the campground. What a difference a day makes. When we left the campground it was mostly empty. Today is Friday and when we got back from our trip to San Sebastian the place was rapidly filling with Spanish families. By the end of the evening the place was nearly full. There is a live band playing on the beach, the population has gone from mostly seniors, to young families with kids, and all of the grills at the campground are going full tilt at 9pm.

We are enjoying it, so we are planning to spend another day to enjoy the weekend scene.

In honor of Cinco de Mayo we decided to move to a Spanish speaking country. The next stop on our plan is Galicia in Northern Spain. Last night we had a debate as to whether to get on the road and jump down to Spain where rain is forecast for the next couple of days, or stay in the Bourdeaux region in France where the weather is supposed to be perfect. After a lot of debate Spain won.

The drive today was about 330km’s that was uneventful. It took a little longer than planned because we ran into a full on urban traffic jam getting around Bourdeaux. It took roughly an hour to cover about 18km’s (12 miles). After getting out of Bourdeaux our route followed the A63 which is like an interstate, but with tolls. The key is that it is only tolled in some areas. So Greta would jump on the A63 when it was free and then have us use local roads that ran parallel when it was tolled. By doing that it saved us €27 in tolls over about 200km’s. Just as I congratulated her for doing a good job, she suddenly decided to route us right thru the heart of Bayonne and Biarritz where we slowed down to a crawl. When I chastised her for her bad judgement, she retorted that if I wasn’t such a cheap skate and willing to pay a toll we would be tooling down the A63 at 95kph instead of crawling thru Biarritz at 15kph.

We arrived in Orio Spain about 3pm. We are in a campground that we had fond memories from our first trip to Spain. It is a small town with a nice beach and a relatively modern city center. The old town is quite small and completely dominated by modern buildings and infrastructure all around it. Despite that we enjoy the vibe of the place.

This is Basque country thru and thru. There are virtually no Spanish signs in town. The conversations are again almost exclusively in Basque, even amongst the children and walking around town we heard as much English as Spanish being spoken. Basque is a tongue twister of a language and Ton and I had fun trying to pronounce the names on the signs.