Saint Jean de Luz

The very last stop on our 3-week tour was a tiny French town just over the Spanish border called Saint Jean de Luz for two days.  It almost combined the charming tiny French village you think of (like the movie Chocolat) plus the beach town vibe of San Sebastian.  They had evidently just had a festival the week before, where it was REALLY hoppin', but then the city shut down for a week or two (while we were there) to gear up for tourist season in July.  This made the town have a much sleepier feel to it than we thought, but it was still delightful all the same.  We did the Rick Steves' walking tour, wandered around, ate yummy food, watched World Cup games, ate ice cream, did some hiking, and just attempted to savor these last moments of our trip.  Here are some pics:

Dinner at Kako, a hotel recommendation for classic French food.

They were known for their Cote de Boeuf with frites, so naturally we got that.

Sunset on the water our first night there.

This pic is far away, but I became enthralled with this idyllic cliffside field thing on the far side of the beach.  It looked like something you might see in a fairy tale, with a random path leading over the hill and a tiny cottage perched up high.  So I made Drew go exploring with me.

Then we stopped for ice cream where they made our scoops into beautiful flowers.  

Everyone told us (and everything we'd read) that there were more Michelin star restaurants per capita in San Sebastian and Saint Jean de Luz than like...anywhere else in the world.  Though we didn't want to spend the money and had low expectations, we figured we'd splurge on our last night at Zoko Moko.  We consider ourselves "foodies" but not necessarily the snooty Michelin-star tasting-menu frou-frou kind - so we were skeptical about this whole damn thing.  But really...this place was worth every euro and worth every Michelin star because we love love LOVED everything we put in our mouths!

The "Amuse Bouche", which consisted of some sort of sandwich, some parmesan crisps with a creamy dip, and a frittata with chorizo.  Tiny food but it packed a punch!

This was my "warm octopus salad with green beans, green and white asparagus, mushrooms,  and bacon".

This was Drew's slow cooked "farm egg" with ham and some sort of breadcrumb Morel stew.  I didn't get it but it was damn good.

My cod with Viscayenne chiles, pink garlic, spinach, and hazelnut butter.

Drew's Boeuf du Pays Basque with a variety of veg and beef cheek-stuffed carrots.  

Dessert: Triple Chocolate Txuri Beltz 2014 (the exact title - no clue what it means), but it was basically a layer of crunchy chocolate goodness, then a layer of chocolate mousse and ice cream, then....

...they poured rich chocolate sauce all over it and melted it all together and I did everything I could NOT to lick my plate clean.  One of the best desserts I've ever had, no joke.

Then as a bonus, we got "petits fours", or really just caramel crunch and stuffed pretzel goodness in a chocolatey caramel sauce.  

Cheers to a magical trip!  And the end of an era!  And the end of our lives as we know it.

That was dramatic...but that's how I felt.  We had just experienced 3 weeks of bliss and I knew that what awaited us in Dublin was packing, goodbyes, and a one-way ticket home to Dallas that we still had mixed feelings about.  So we just soaked up our last evening, cried a little on the plane ride home (me), and braced ourselves for what lied ahead.  More on that to come.

We obviously loved our trip and will probably never have the chance to do something like that again...for a long, long time, at least.  We lived it up and made the most of it and took advantage and enjoyed our time together seeing this part of the world.  Goodbye, Second Honeymoon!  I shall miss you and think of you every day for a long long time.

San Sebastian

Ahhh, San Sebastian.  A belle époque European beach city you might think of in the 1950's or 60's, with the bright blue water, the high rise unchanging resorts on the waterfront, the outdoor cafes on the promenade...just pure nostalgia and happiness and beauty in my opinion.  We enjoyed two quiet low key days here full of eating and drinking and beach time, along with some hiking and a stop by the city aquarium cause I'm a sucker for that stuff.  So this was basically like every other part of our trip.

View from our pretty hotel room.

View on the beach.  No nudists out this time.

More flowers and palm trees and city centres.

I'm clearly a sucker for old school government buildings.

A blurry sunset picture over the harbor.

We hiked up to the "mountain" on the east side of the bay one day.  There's a large statue of Jesus that looks over the city, kinda like in Rio.

Two sweaty hikers.

Peace!  

Now onto the aquarium!  This is a huge whale skeleton because evidently the whaling industry used to be huge in San Sebastian.

A trippy light tank full of jelly fish.  

Starfish!

They had a MASSIVE tank where all kinds of huge fish swam in front of you and over you, and this 8-foot long bull shark kept passing over me.  And I got scared.

A blurry picture of a huge eel, like the one in The Little Mermaid.  No thank you.

A crazy cuttlefish!

Another giant eel hiding in a clay pot.
(Remember in Super Mario Brothers with N64 and there was an underwater level where you had to lure this giant eel out of the ship so Mario could get in?  That's what this reminds me of.)

I don't know what these guys are but they are about the size of a large straw and they kept poking their "heads" in and out of their hidey-holes.  Kinda funny.

Tons of Nemos!

Relaxing at a Gintoneria - these Spaniards LOVE their gin and tonics.  And that means I do too now.

And lastly...our pintxos!  We went on a pinxtos crawl through the old town and ate a couple bites and drank some wine at each place before moving on to the next ones.  It was so fun and so cheap and so delicious and filling!

If you ever find yourself in Northern Spain and are looking for a bit of relaxing and great food, San Sebastian is your place.  Besides all of the pintxos we mentioned above (Rick Steves has a great little crawl route that we took), they also have the highest number of Michelin stars per capita of any city in the world.  Overall, it was a great place to visit for a little fun in the sun!

Bilbao

After our week of relaxation in Greece, we flew to northern Spain to check it out.  We toyed with lots of different options of places to go for our last week, Sevilla/Granada/Spain's Costa del Sol, but ultimately decided to go to an area we hadn't been before.  I was pretty devastated that I never got to revisit Sevilla during our entire 2 years abroad but...I can come back.  And I will.  So on to northern Spain!

We spent a day/night in Bilbao, 2 days/nights in San Sebastian, and 2 days/nights across the Spanish border in France in a little tiny town called Saint Jean de Luz.

We didn't know a ton about Bilbao when we booked it, but boy are we glad we went.  It's most famously known for THE modern Guggenheim Museum built there in 1997, but it's got a lot more to offer.  Since the museum was built, the city has evidently blown up with other amazing modern architecture and it's now a beautiful, modern, open, clean city!  It kinda reminded me of Barcelona, in that it feels Spanish and French at the same time, and has beautiful buildings and clean streets and BONUS: it's surrounded by lush green mountains that make it look like a little town in the Alps.  And it's in the heart of Basque Country, which is northern Spain/southern France, who have their own culture, language, food, and everything else.  We loved getting to see it.

Maman, by Louise Bourgeois - the famous giant spider sculpture outside the museum.  It's a tribute to her mother (which makes me think her mom wasn't a very nice person if her daughter thinks of a spider) BUT her mom was a weaver!  Who knew.  But also, she evidently wasn't a very nice person.

This is Tall Tree & The Eye by Anish Kapoor - and according to the description on the website, the "illusionistic work continues the artist's examination of complex mathematical and structural principles embodied in sculptural form."  Oh and also, it just looks cool.  For those of you who are fans of Jerryworld, this is the same guy who did the Sky Mirror.

Perhaps my favorite thing about the museum, this is Puppy by Jeff Koons!  It's a WESTIE made of flowers!  Basically it's Murphy in humongous cutie flower format.  And I just like Jeff Koons.  Evidently it was supposed to be a temporary display but the people of Bilbao fell in love with Puppy so they kept it!  As they should.

Tulips by Jeff Koons again.  I like his stuff.  They look like mylar balloons and I dig it.

The pretty inside.

The exhibits in the museum were pretty weird but we did enjoy our time there - except for one exhibit.  Yoko Ono set up shop there and that. bitch. is. weird.  And I hate her anyway for WHAT SHE DID!!  So her exhibit was just...a bunch of random shit - a glass of water on a table. "Air dispensers" which were empty plastic cases inside of a bubble gum candy dispenser.  A glass panel hanging on the wall entitled "A painting to let the evening light in."  A description of her performance art titled Breathe, where she passes around a card that says "Breathe." to the audience three times.  Another performance art description entitled "Clock" where the audience watches a clock for an hour.  And even more performances with various artists where she just yells and screams and writhes on stage like a freak.  I already hated her but now I hate her even more, and I'm LIVID that a respectable place like the Guggenheim has given her validation for her ridiculous choices.  The rest of the weekend Drew proceeded to try to think of his own performance art ideas: "Two people.  Walking.  Holding hands.  Representing the passage of time and the terrorism of life.  And you can't argue with me or say its not true because THIS IS MY TRUTH."  What a nut job.

The one thing I did participate in was a "Wish Tree" that Yoko put up, where you could write your wish and hang it on this tree.  So I did.  But I'm not telling you what my wish was.

And that was the end of our foray into the art world.

Just a pretty square with flowers in the city centre.

And another pretty government building.

And more pretty architecture.

And the huge Catedral de Santiago, adorned with the iconic shell for pilgrims doing the Camino de Santiago!
(That's for you Kara!) 

Northern Spain is known for the "pintxos", which are basically tapas that are laid out on the bar for you to eat at your leisure.  They are SO cheap, and so is the wine, so we ate like kings for a very small price!

Chillin with some beers and cards at a cafe in the old quarter.

Flower shaped ice cream cones!  

More yum food.  This was a tortilla espanola with some sort of creamy cheese, bacon, mushroom, and onion mixture on top.  Must recreate it when I get back.

We had a great time in Bilbao and loved getting to see this gorgeous city, if even for a little while!