Thursday, February 26, 2016

Many of our Parador and other hotel packages have included breakfast. The breakfast buffets have been wonderful – eggs, meat, cheese, bread, fruit, coffee, juices. But when breakfast is not included in our package the price for the breakfast buffet is usually about €12 each. So we usually find coffee outside the hotel.

This morning we found a wonderful pastelería. The owner explained what was in the local favorites. The filling in Duke’s pastry is called angel hair. Apparently the filling is made from some kind of melon or squash. We didn’t quite catch the word. It was all really good.

We also bought four of the little bow tie thingies to snack on later

This is a picture of our Parador in Olite. Our room is the window on the right behind the tree.

In Olite we picked up a map of the state of Navarra. It showed all the wineries, Roman ruins, churches and castles. I don’t know why I’m so fascinated by Roman ruins but since we had a relatively short distance to drive today we decided to take the back roads and find the Roman ruins that were kind of on our route.

The first one near the village of Falces was the Villa de San Esteban.

The second one was quite a bit farther off the main road and judging by the building must have been something special but unfortunately it was closed.

Wednesday, February 24, 2016

This morning we drove into France and went inland a bit so we could explore some of the Pyrenees.

We finally found some sheep that met all our photogenic criteria and were in a place where we could safely park. The first one only looks like a two headed sheep it is actually two sheep!

When we got to the top of the mountain pass we headed up a side road to the lookout but we were finally stopped by snow.

One of our main course choices was salmon.

And one of our desert course choices was pear in wine sauce.

Tuesday, February 23, 2016

Today was a lovely rest day. We went for a long walk, explored the town and walked along the water front to the edge of the breakwater. It rained a bit but it was warm enough that the walk was great!

Around five we had wine and olives in a bar near the hotel.

We have gotten used to not even thinking about dinner until 8:30 or so when most restaurants open. We had dinner not far from our hotel. There were three other occupied tables in the small restaurant and we were the only table not speaking French. The food pictures didn’t come out very well because it was fairly dark but we had a great meal. Here is my fish and scallops skewer.

Monday, February 22, 2016

This morning we left Bilbao and drove east along the coast. We are in Basque Country. We saw lots of Basque graffiti and beautiful sheep. We kept trying to find the perfect sheep picture but never did.

Tonight we are staying in a Parador in Hondarribia our window overlooks the river and on the other side France.

For dinner we had the Basque equivalent of tapas, they are called pintxo here. At a local tavern near where we are staying, Gastroteka Danontzat, we had an incredibly helpful and enthusiastic host. He and Duke consulted and the result was marvelous. We started with anchovies and flying fish caviar and then a wonderful cheese with olive oil and walnuts.

Then we had the most wonderful octopus with potatoes, seaweed and their special sauce.

And we ended up with rice pudding.

Sunday, February 21, 2016

When we left Cangas de Onís this morning we headed up the road to the shrine at Covadonga. We climbed up to the cave where they were getting ready for mass. We had a coffee in the nearby cafeteria before heading through the mountains to the coast.

We wanted to get to Bilbao today in time to visit the Guggenheim Museum because it is closed on Mondays. The museum opened in 1997 on the Bilbao waterfront. The collection had some cool stuff but the building itself was amazing. It was designed by the Canadian architect Frank Gehry. The building was designed to look like it is a part of the river and the nearby bridge and to represent both the ocean and the industrial history of Bilbao.

Out front they have a 12 m high highland terrier made up of flowers. The joke is that the dog was there first and the museum was built as his dog house.

Duke found a highly rated restaurant across the street from the hotel. It turned out to be in the shopping center. Our dinner wasn’t healthy but boy was it good! There are chips under all that.