Sadly, Saturday had been a whole day without cherries and yet another day without a pasteis de nata. How is that you can cross an imaginary line in Europe that says you are now in Spain and suddenly no-one sells pasteis de nata, or roadside cherries. When we crossed from Germany to France last year, all sales of rösti ceased. Are they banned substances in foreign countries?
On Sunday in the driving rain and, with both of us already soaked, we climbed in to Eileen’s working seats and headed east towards Santander. We were to come full circle on our trip around the Iberian Peninsula and the weather was just as cool and wet as when we arrived in April. As we drove along the freeway, we started to reminisce about all the places we’ve been to, the people we have met, the meals eaten, the variety of campsites and of course the weather. Thank goodness Portugal had been dry; campervan life is so much easier and enjoyable when it’s not wet. And here are some more tips for happy camping that need passing on at this point. Don’t park next to a field of cows in Europe; they tend to have big bells round their necks that don’t have an on/off switch. Don’t park next to a duck pond, frogs like duck ponds and they tend to croak loudly, late into the night; they also don’t have an on/off switch. And if you are not a fan of wet weather, avoid the Costa Verde; there is a reason why it’s called the ‘green coast’.
As we neared Santander the cloud was hanging right down to the road, our windscreen wipers were on full and headlights switched on, then on the radio U2 started singing ‘It’s a Beautiful Day’. We did laugh and sang along badly to a brilliant song. We were going to visit Comillas and Santillana del Mar and Boo de Piélagos (just for the name), but we just couldn’t face wandering in the rain. We thought about heading to Castro-Urdiales, but decided to stop at Camping Playa Arenillas and hole up for the afternoon. The wind and rain did ease a bit sometime in the afternoon, so we wandered over to the headland above Playa de Arenillas. Fingers crossed tomorrow will be better.
Unfortunately I wasn’t too well on Monday, so we only managed a short visit in to Castro-Urdiales to sort out our wi-fi and pop in to a post office. I can’t remember much about the town, but I think it looked quite nice.
As we had to drive through Bilbao to get further east, we decided to try and get a glimpse of the Guggenheim Museum. Amazingly we found a parking spot big enough for Eileen, just along the road from the museum. The rain had eased so we parked and got out for a stroll around the mind-boggling building. There was a very large spider sitting beside the museum and we both remembered seeing it before; inside the Tate Modern in London many years ago. The marvellous, flower covered ‘Puppy’ by Jeff Koons was sitting on the other side outside the entrance, last time we saw him, was many years ago in Sydney. We didn’t go inside the museum in case we had already seen everything in there too! No not really, I just wasn’t well enough to keep walking and needed to get back to Eileen.
From Bilbao, Rodney the Driver drove 70kms further east to Camping Gran Zarautz via a rather wriggling, incredibly slow, but picturesque N364. We were greeted at the gate by three members of staff and told to follow the man on the quad bike to our pitch. As we entered the campsite, we were a bit shocked to see hundreds and hundreds of tiny tents pitched back to back in really narrow rows, gawd knows how they got in and out of them! Thankfully Mr Quad bike took us to a pitch at the far end of the campsite and put us right next to a hedge with a stunning view over the cliff, the splendid beach and the town of Zarautz. He cheerfully informed us that the mass encampment was full of five hundred young Aussies and Kiwis who were travelling back and forth from there to Pamplona for the San Fermin Running of the Bulls. We spotted some of them wearing the traditional white clothing and red scarves and quite a few with a plastic glass of beer in hand.
We had dinner fairly early and then wandered around the hedge to the meadow like cliff top and went for a slow stroll before bedtime.
All of Tuesday morning was spent catching up on email and researching our next move. We had discovered another campsite closer to San Sebastian that would involve only a single bus journey into town rather than two buses at Zarautz, so we decided it would be worth moving the 15kms. When four pretty German girls turned up in two small blue campervans, we gave them our premier position on the front row and got moving. When we arrived at Camping Igueldo the rain poured down yet again. The campsite was muddy and the pitches were rather tight, but it turned out to be okay and when the rain stopped mid-afternoon, we walked over the road to the bus stop and headed in to San Sebastian.
We roamed around the Parte Vieja, the old town, which isn’t very old because the whole city was burned down in 1813. But it’s a nice area of traffic-free narrow streets full of busy cafés and restaurants. We sat down for a drink in the Plaza de la Constitución and a dog left a poo about ten-metres in front of us. This resulted in us spending the next half-hour watching to see how long it would be before someone trod in it and spread it around the very pleasant plaza. It was only five-minutes before a man kissed it with the toe of his shoes as he pushed a wheelchair over it, but we decided that didn’t count. By the time we left everyone else had managed to avoid it, so we called a halt to the game and went in search of tapas.
In this part of Spain, the Basque call their version of tapas, Pintxos and the bars are covered in plates full of various gastronomic delights. Traditionally they were free, but nowadays it seems to have become a bit of a tourist attraction and if you eat enough of the double bite-sized morsels, there’s definitely no room left for dinner afterwards. We picked Taberna Aralar, a bar that actually had a table free and asked the barman “what do we do?” while pointing at his pintxos. He looked at the ceiling and said “I ask myself that every morning when I wake up”. He did then explain that he would give us a plate, we then help ourselves to the ones we fancied and he would then add up how much we owed him. Easy. We ate well and then slowly wandered back to the bus stop, via the enormous ice cream shop. The shop wasn’t enormous, but the ‘small single cone’ chocolate and orange ice cream was the biggest I’ve ever had.
It was another dreary start to Wednesday, but when the rain eased we hopped on the 11am bus back in to San Sebastian. While it was still cool, we meandered the footpaths up Monte Urgull to the Sacred Heart statue dramatically positioned on the peak. There are fabulous views in all directions over the beaches on either side of the headland and of the city itself.
By the time we had staggered back down to sea level we had built up a good appetite for a meal at Restaurante Gandarias. The restaurant, and the steaks that they serve, were highly recommended by our friends Kath & Terry, so we had to see if they knew what they were talking about. The waitress recommended we have an 845-gram rib steak and she politely introduced us to the raw hunk, before it was cooked. Cooked to perfection, that is. Rodney’s mouth was watering, and I will put it in writing that he declared it was the best piece of steak he had ever eaten. Thank you Mr & Mrs Thelwell, for your highly appreciated recommendation and for anyone reading this and intending to visit San Sebastian, do go to Gandarias and have the rib steak for sure.
We spent the afternoon wandering the shops and sites of San Sebastian. The sun came out, though it really wasn’t warm enough for stripping off for a swim. Late in the afternoon we had another drink in the Plaza de la Constitución; no dog poo to watch today, so we had to settle for people watching. Rodney did buy another pair of shorts which will be modelled in Sydney next summer. I went the other end of the weather scale and bought a nice chunky jumper which kept me warm on the journey back to the campsite later in the day.
