5-13-11 Fuente De to Leon

          The Parador here in Fuenta De is in a canyon carved by a river.  Driving through the canyon reminds me of the drive along the Merced River to Yosemite. 

          After breakfast, we took a tram from across the road from the Parador up 3000’ to a peak, above the canyon.  We were treated to a panoramic view of the Parador, the canyon, and the surrounding mountains.      

Tram ride above our Parador Fuenta De

On top of the canyon

        

    From the top, where the tram dropped us off, there are several hiking trails that are popular for hiking and also mountain biking.  There is a 14.5 km trail back to the base of the tram that looked like it would be fun – almost all downhill, and not too steep, since it only drops 3000’ over 14.5 km.  We met a young couple who live in the area and who were preparing to ride down – they said it takes less than an hour for the ride down, which they do often.

          We boarded the bus for our next Parador at 11 am.  The drive to lunch was back through part of the canyon, then over a mountain pass (San Glorio) and down to a reservoir where we had lunch in a small hotel.  Coming down from the pass, I saw a dirt road which ran for miles, winding down from the pass, and thought about how much fun that would be to ride on my mountain bike, provide Marge dropped me off at the top and met me at the bottom.        

        For lunch I had a hearty bowl of veggie soup, a salmon steak for entrée, and a lemon mousse for dessert.  All were good, so I finished most of them even though I could have stopped after the soup.

Outside our lunch restaurant were bike/planter boxes

          Our group of 26 people is good.  Normally in a tour group, there are a few people who are obnoxious or who don’t get on the bus on time, but this group doesn’t have anyone like that.  It seems that most, if not all, of them have traveled extensively.  It is interesting to hear from them about other places and/or tours that would be interesting.  It is also enjoyable just getting to know a new group of people, from different parts of the country.   Except for 5 people, all of the group are from either the east coast, mainly New York, or California.    

          The weather is again perfect – mid 60s with blue skies.  The countryside that we drove through is very green with light red dirt.   I’m glad someone else is doing the driving so I can relax, enjoy the view and write about it on my netbook.  Yesterday, when we were driving to our hotel in the late afternoon, it was misting, but that didn’t matter to us on the bus.

          We arrived in our destination for today, Leon at 4 pm.  When our tour guide said here’s our Parador – Hostal San Marcos, our hotel for tonight, all I saw was what looked like a big, nicely preserved church.  The hotel was originally built in the 16^th century as a monastery for the Knights of St James to protect pilgrims on the famous prilgramage to Santiago de Compostela, which is our next stop.  San Marcos is now a 5 star hotel, but they have done an excellent job of retaining the historical features.                     

Our parador in Leon

Marge's photo of the parador

Marge's photo of the parador

 After arriving, a local tour guide showed us the cathedral, which has many stained glass windows, but like museums, I’m not a fan of churches or cathedrals for that matter. 

Dinner was in the hotel in a very nice dining room looking out at a garden next to the river.  I had an appetizer of grilled veggies, which were very good.  The best thing about my next dish, veal in mushroom sauce were the mushrooms.  By the time I got to dessert, which was tiramisu, a small scoop of ice cream on a mirangue, and a taste of Teri’s strawberry gelato, I was very full. 

Veal in mushroom sauce

My tiramisu

Teri's strawberry gellato

Marge's dessert

5-12-11 San Sebastian to Bilbao to Fuente De

Breakfast at the hotel is befitting a fine hotel, like a Sunday brunch buffet in most other places.  There was an extensive array of fresh fruits, pastries, cereals, smoked salmon, sushi, eggs, Iberian ham, and other things that looked good but I didn’t know what they were.  This morning, among other things, I had a small cup of custard which made my eyes roll back in my head with pleasure. 

My humble plate - one of them

On the way out of our room, I checked the rack rate: 610 euros/day!  It was a nice room.  The bathroom had a shower and a bathtub and 2 sinks. The room itself was very large and had a balcony that overlooked the river in front of the hotel.         

          We departed for our next leg at 8:30 am.  San Sebastian was a nice stop, particularly because of the many tapas bars all clustered together, and the nice beaches.  I wouldn’t want to be here during their international film festival or during the summer when the town is packed to the gills. 

          We cover a lot of ground on this trip, which means several days spent mostly on the bus.  I don’t mind the travel days because I can read a book, send and receive email, work on my trip journal on my net book, or nap.   I could even surf the internet on my android phone, but haven’t done that.  We also stop periodically for rest breaks or a nice lunch (paid by Tauck), or several hours at a tourist site along the way.

          Our main stop today is at Bilbao to visit Frank Gehry’s famous Guggenheim Museum Bilbao.  It was completed in 1997 and transformed what was a small, dirty, graffiteed, smelly city into a significant tourist destination, all due to the museum.  It cost a fortune to build, but the town recouped the cost in 2 years.  Interesting fact: Gehry designed his LA concert hall before he designed the museum in Bilbao but Bilbao got organized and the money faster and built their building before LA did. 

          I had seen photos and a documentary of the museum before, but it is a work of art that one has to personally see, explore and feel.  We arrived just before it opened so were able to see it for 2 hours without big crowds.

I’m not a museum person.  The first time we were in Paris, Marge insisted that I go through the Louvre, so I consented, but for only 30 minutes worth. She mapped out a 30 minute dash that took me by the major pieces in the allotted time.  When we were in Madrid, I spent my time at the Prado in the lobby reading a book.  I do, however, enjoy architecture and public art, so most of the time in the Bilbao Guggenheim was spent thinking WOW!!  For the most part, only straight surfaces on the inside and outside are the floors; the walls and roof curve in ways that set it apart from any building I have ever seen, including Gehry’s LA concert hall.  Unfortunately, no photos are allowed inside the building.

The materials of the walls of the building (titanium, glass and stone), their non-linear shapes, and the way the sunlight changes the shade of the materials depending on the angle of the wall, help make the building unique. 

The art piece I liked the most was on the first floor, called The Matter of Time by Richard Serra.  It consisted of a series of rust colored walls about 15’ tall, arranged in circular, conical and wavy arrangements that were interesting to walk around, in between and into.  Then when we were on the 2d floor, there was view of that gallery from above that gives the viewer a different perspective of what they walked through on the 1^st floor.    Here's a link to a photo of the piece: link to The Matter of Time

 The building looks different and spectacular from almost any angle you look at it from the inside and from the outside.  

          There are several giant and colorful art pieces outside of the museum that would be significant on their own right and add to the artistic value of the museum. 

Marge's photo of a big spider about to eat a jogger

Marge's photo of the elevator shaft in the museum

Marge's photo shows that the museum has very few straight surfaces

Marge's photo of dog guarding the museum

The front of the museum - the entrance is off the photo on the right

The entrance to the museum

          We had lunch after a couple hours drive to Parador Gil Bas in the town of the same name.  I had a veggie appetizer, in an attempt to eat healthy, and taggliatelli, which was not very tasty.  I also had diced fruit with a scoop of orange sherbet.

          After lunch we drove on, and after a while were driving through a beautiful gorge/park called Picos De Europa to the Parador just outside the small town of Fuente De at 7 pm.  Dinner was at 8:30 pm.  I had a small bowl of mushroom & leek soup, which was tasty but not divine enough to finish.  My entrée was a boneless osso bucco, which was very good, but more than I could eat.  Dessert was 6 chocolate truffles on a bed of whipped cream, which was delicious, but I couldn’t finish it since it was 10:30 pm by then.  

8

5-11-10 San Sebastian

This am we took a guided walking tour of the area around the hotel.  The best part of the tour was that the guide pointed out some of the best tapas bars.  There are at least 40 tapas bars within a short walk from the hotel.   Today, lunch and dinner are on our own, so Marge and I and Teri decided to have tapas for both lunch and dinner to have a day where we aren’t always full. 

          For lunch we went to a tapas (called pintxos here in the Basque region) bar and shared a glass of sangria and 5 tapas.  Teri joined us for our tasty lunch. 

We were having a gellato, and saw this model and camera crew walk past.  When we caught up to them, the model was waiting for the cameras, and Marge took a photo.

Marge's photo of a model waiting for a photo shoot in San Sebastian

           

After lunch we walked along the sea wall at the end of the peninsula that the hotel is on, enjoying the perfect weather.   Except for one very short bit of rain while we were in La Sagrada Familia church in Barcelona, we have had great weather – sunny and mid 60s to mid 70s. 

          After the tour, Marge and I went to an office for Orange mobile phone co to add more days of usage for my phone, long enough to last until we are out of Spain.  Before I came, I had read mixed reviews of buying a sim card over here to get internet access on mobile phones, but it has worked out better than I expected.  I paid 10 euros for the sim card and a week’s worth of usage, and today only paid 5 euros for another week.  This has allowed me to send and receive email, check stocks, look at Google maps to see where we are or to see what restaurants are nearby, check the weather forecast.  It also enabled me to call the hotel for a ride when I was finished with my bike ride a couple of days ago.   Hotel Maria Christina wanted 5 euros for an hour of wifi usage in the hotel – I instead just turned on my phone’s wifi hotspot feature, which allowed me to use my net book to email my journal and read the SF Chronicle and Wall Street Journal. 

          On the way back to the hotel, we walked by San Sebastian’s surfing beach, which I understand to be a favorite among surfers. 

          Tapas: Tapas are usually served room temperature on a slice of baguette which serves as an edible plate.  The fun part is all the different toppings, which may include Iberian ham, sardines, crumbled hard boiled egg w may, prawns, pimentos, bacon, artichoke hearts, cheese, and anything else that is tasty.  There are also hot tapas which are cooked or heated when you select them.  They all have a toothpick in them to use to put the item in your mouth. You pay by the piece, sometimes when you select all of your choices, and sometimes when you finish, at which time you show them how many toothpicks you have on your plate.  

         Tapas bars are similar to sushi boat places in many respects.  You pick out what looks good to you, the portions are about the same and so are the prices.  I think a good tapas bar probably has a greater variety of dishes than your average sushi boat place.  Our tour guide says that he looks for a tapas bar that has a lot of people in it.   We passed a number of bars that had a lot of good looking tapas on the counter, but didn’t have many customers, so we just walked on by.

          For dinner Teri, Marge and I had tapas at another nearby tapas bar.  Teri returned to the hotel after the 1^st one, and we stopped at another for a few more for a total of 7 tapas.   All of the tapas were different and good.  It was nice to finish dinner by 8:30 pm and be full be not stuffed.  If we had gone to a restaurant, we wouldn’t have gotten in before 8:30 pm, and locals don’t normally eat until 10 or 11 pm.

Tapas dinner

Marge's photo of tapas

  

5-10-11 La Seu d’Urgell to San Sebastian

We departed La Seu d'Urgell at 8 am for San Sebastian.  We stopped in Pamplona for a simple lunch of drinks and tapas (Serrano ham, a tortilla & a couple of ham croquettes).

lunch in Pamplona

After lunch our tour guide walked us along the path for the running of the bulls that happens every July.  Pamplona became famous after Hemingway wrote about the San Fermin festival and the running of the bulls.  There are a couple of statues of him in town.

Sculpture of the bull run

We arrived in San Sebastian in the late afternoon.  San Sebastian is on Spain’s Atlantic coast, not far from the border with France.   We are staying at the Hotel Maria Christina, which is where movie stars stay during the local film festival. 

San Sebastian

I like Tauck tours because they stay at the best hotels, which I normally would not consider due to the expense.  They also take you to very nice restaurants.  Although we can afford these hotels and restaurants, the poor farm boy in me makes me uncomfortable doing it.

Tonight, we ate at the hotel restaurant in a very elegant dining room, with really expensive fixtures, 2 story high ceilings with very elegant columns and curtains, and views overlooking the river.  I imagine this is the dining room reserved for VIPs during their film festival.  Like last night’s dinner, a very nice setting.  

Our luxurious dining room

fresh pea soup with olive oil and a quail egg

Marge had creamed crab on avocado puree for an appetizer

Basque gateaux (cake)

5-9-10 La Seu d’Urgell

We started with breakfast with a gorgeous view from the dining room:

          In the am, we took a walk in town guided by Katja, the wife of the owner of the hotel.  The central area has quaint, narrow streets, old buildings with flower lined balconies, several bakeries, and a church.  The feature that put them on the map is the Olympic kayaking center that they built for the 1992 Barcelona Olympics.  They rerouted part of the river that runs through town so it can be used for kayaking year round.  When there is more water than needed for kayaking, they use the water to generate power.  While we were there, a group of teenagers were going down the rapids. 

Kayaking down the Olympic Kayak course

Later, we saw elementary school kids getting ready to go through.  They have an escalator which allows the kayakers to ride back up to the start without having to get out of their kayak.  As we were leaving the center, Katja mentioned that they also rent mountain bikes there, and asked if I might be interested.  When we got back to the hotel, she agreed that someone from the hotel would drop me off at the bike rental later in the afternoon, then pick me up when I finished.

          Lunch was as follows:

veggie terrine (eggplant, roasted red peppers and hearts of romaine lettuce)

Paella

diced mixed fruit in a fruit sauce with a dollop of gelato

In the afternoon, I rented a mountain bike and rode on a bike path along the river.  The weather was perfect, and although I am not in shape, the spectacular scenery along the river made me forget my lack of conditioning.  The river runs past small farms which start at the town limits, and since they are all served by a system of small water canals, I could always hear rushing water no matter how hard I was pedaling.  I saw farms with buildings with stone walls, grain fields, sheep, cattle, red poppies, trees along the river, and mountains on all sides  I rode 12 scenic miles until I ran out of water and time.  Although I had ridden 1.5 hours, the attendant only charged me for 1 hour – 8.8 Euros.  The hotel was kind enough to drive me down to the rental shop, then pick me up when I was finished.

          Dinner was in the castle’s main dining room.    The owner’s grandfather had bought the castle from the Spanish government for 12,000 euros in the 1950s.  At the time he bought it, it was in ruins: many of the rooms had been used to raise farm animals, doorways had been boarded up, stone walls were crumbling, etc.  The main dining room is a great hall, with high ceilings supported by stone arches, tapestries on the walls, but with modern light fixtures and bathrooms.  Our group of 26 dined at a single long table set with candles.   It was such a magnificent setting that we all spent a while taking photos.     

    

Joe & Ann

                                            

             Here’s what we had:

Grilled prawn with greens and baby fava beans

Pan seared sea-bream (white fish) on wild rice with dried fruits

Filet mignon (very rare) with a very rich mushroom cream sauce

Selection of cheeses

A small glass of crushed ice with citrus juice

Puff pastry with chantilly + cream

Coffee + petite fours

White wine & a red 1973 Rioja Gran Reserva

The 1973 Rioja Gran Reserva is rare; the hotel has it because the owner’s father bought a lot of it when it came out, and at that time one had to buy it by the pallet, not by the case, so he bought a lot of it.

          I remember last year when we were in Tuscany that my right knee was in bad shape so that I had to use a cane to be able to walk more than half a mile.  This year my knee is fine and that has made a big difference in my enjoyment of the trip.  Last year I had to be mindful about what was planned for the day, and that limited what I could do.