Our Excellent Adventure in Spain

An easy hour and a half flight on RyanAir, our friends Tom and Karren Crouch and Rex and I landed at the 

airport in Biarritz, France, located in southern France near the border of Spain.  We rented a car there and our excellent and much under-paid driver, Rex, drove to San Sebastian, Spain, which is only about a 45 minute drive from the airport.

We stayed at the beautiful Villa Soro in San Sebastian.

As in most European cities, San Sebastian has it's town square.  This is Constitution Plaza during the day.

There used to be bull fights held here and these numbers above the doorways represented the window seats that were sold to those that could afford a good view.  Nowadays they are very expensive apartments that are small and, according to a local, not in very good condition.

And here it is at night, filled with locals and visitors alike, sharing a cup of coffee or a glass of wine and rehashing the day.  Their sense of community and easy-going lifestyle is very apparent in places like this.

The Joneses and the Crouches on the Zurriola Bridge (also pictured below), built in the 1920's.

San Sebastian is located on the Cantabrian Sea between Bilbao and Biarritz.

Here's a local providing some lovely Spanish music on the bridge.

Europe has been experiencing unusually warm weather for this time of year and S.S. was no exception.  The beaches were packed with people hoping to get in one last hot, sunny weekend of frolicking on the sands of La Concha beach.

Interestingly, there were hardly any beach chairs on the beach.  It was impeccably clean and everyone just brings a simple towel and finds an empty spot.  The most popular pastime seemed to be just being out in the beautiful sunshine and strolling along the beach.

High above the La Concha beach sits a gigantic statue of Christ and surrounding the statue is the Castle of the Holy Cross, an 800-year old fortress that once guarded the city from invaders.

We saw men all over the place wearing pedal pushers but Karren and I couldn't convince Rex and Tom to wear them!

This was a little open-air train that took us around the city.  Txu Txu is pronounced "choo choo" - get it?!  Actually, many of the Basque words have X's in them.  This language, called Euskara, is really foreign looking and dates back about 5,000 years.  It's the oldest, pre-indo European language still in existence and about 30% of S.S.'s population speak Euskara.

The city is well-designed and is a popular tourist spot for Spaniards and all nationalities.

In the Old Town, the narrow streets offer surprising views at every corner.  Looking right at this intersection, lies the Basilica de Santa Maria while looking left

you'll find the Buen Pastor Cathedral.

Boarding a small little boat, we cross an estuary to the scenic, little fishing village of San Juan.

Here, time seems to stand still as

the laundry is still hung out to dry in the warmth of the sun.

We take our time exploring the village on foot along with

 a multitude of local school children on a field trip.

Colorful flower boxes complement the brightly painted balconies and doorways.

The walkways and streets are narrow

and almost uninhabited except for this 

woman who is taking her cats (yes, there are two huge cats in this stroller) for a walk!

The water looks refreshing.

The red and white markings on the right side of the picture indicate the route for the El Camino de Santiago.  In English it means “The Way of Saint James,” and is the pilgrimage to the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in northwestern Spain, where legend has it that the remains of Jesus’s apostle, Saint James, lie. The Camino has existed as a Christian pilgrimage for well over 1,000 years. 

Many people still do this for spiritual reasons or just for sport and adventure.  We walked a lot but not near the approximately 560 miles of the entire Camino! 

A parting scene of San Juan.  More to come on our visit to the Basque Country as I haven't even touched upon a couple of the greatest things about this part of the world - the food and wine!