Bilbo (Bilbao), Donosti (San Sebastian), Gasteiz (Vitoria)

Kaixo! Ongi etorri! (Hello! Welcome!)
Last weekend, there was a holiday in Madrid (San Isidro), so Joaquín and I decided to drive up to the Basque country and spend some time there. I had never been, though he had been to Bilbao and Vitoria before. We were lucky enough to be able to stay a friend's apartment in Vitoria, though the apartment is no longer in regular use.
We drove up to Vitoria Saturday morning, and almost as soon as we crossed the border from Madrid to Castilla-León, the fog rolled in and the sky was cloudy from then on. We dropped our bags off in Vitoria and headed to Bilbao. It was still cloudy, but through it threatened to rain, it never did. We walked around the center of Bilbao. We had lunch at a fantastic little restaurant that was really busy, and rightfully so, because the food was great. We obviously walked by the Guggenheim (though we didn't go into the museum... mostly because it cost a lot), but the building itself is truly a sight to see. We were not lucky enough to see the famous puppy, as it was being readied for summer.

After that, we drove up to Gaztelugatxe. This was the thing I absolutely insisted on seeing when we were here. I had heard about it and knew I had to go. San Juan de Gaztelugatxe is a monastery build on a tiny islet to the north of Bilbao, only accessible by walking about an hour down the side of a mountain to the coast of the Cantabrian Sea. (I say it's only accessible by foot, mostly because the entire time we were there, there was a van trying to make it back up the mountain side, and failing miserably... so while there is a road, it isn't exactly smart to use). The monastery is at the top of the islet's peak, more than 200 old steps up. Most of the way, if you weren't on the stairs, you would have trouble not falling down the steep mountainsides and tumbling into the water.

This was our first view of the monastery. You can see it is extremely isolated! This hike took a lot out of us. I normally don't walk that far for that long and it was definitely strenuous, but I am so glad we made it. We even got to ring the church bell at the top! Here's a picture of us in front at a view point with the monastery in the background.

So, long day with lots of walking, but totally amazing experience! We drove back to Vitoria, got a quick, cheap dinner, and crashed.
The next day, we drove (I should say Joaquín drove and I sat and took pictures) to San Sebastián. It was also supposed to rain that day, but ended up being really sunny (which wasn't necessarily good because I didn't have sun screen!) We got to Sanse and walked around the old city for a while, and got lots of pintxos for lunch (tapas, basically, but they're called Pintxos and that's important). Most of the bars in the old city just had plates of pintxos and you got a plate and picked out three or four plus a drink, so you could eat a lot really cheaply, and get a lot of variety with it. I wasn't sure how I felt about seafood being left on a counter for an unknown period of time, though...
We finished lunch and decided to trek up Urgull, the hill on the east side of the bay at the top of which is a castle. It takes a bit to get there, but it has beautiful views of the city. Sanse is this city that's right next to a sheltered bay, with a beach and beautiful hills around it. The old city is all under the view of this castle on a hill, but the rest of the city reaches a ways around.

Here you can see part of the city next to the water. The old city is to the left, mostly hidden by trees. You can see how it's super cloudy in the distance, but where we are is really sunny. Once we made it to the top, we asked a girl to take a picture for us.

We admired the view for a bit and headed back down. We walked back through the old city to the other side of the bay, just to see it, and stopped in a museum with a bunch of paintings by Gonzalo Chillida. (Very confusingly, there are two Chillida artists famous in Sanse, brothers, but obviously famous in the Basque country for different things, and that's too many Chillida artists in my opinion).
After that, we took a bus (because we had done a lot of walking) a few stops to get to the other side of the bay, and we took a San-Fran style cable car up to the top of the other mountain. At the top of this mountain, there are amusement park rides. We only rode one, a little river-boat ride, mostly because it honestly felt like you were about to fall out of the boat and into the ocean. This is the view from one point in that ride...

So from this picture, you can see the castle on top of the hill that we were on earlier, the old city to the right of that, and a bit of the beach (as well as the land mass that makes the water of the bay so calm!) Finally, we took the cable car back down, walked along the beach back to the car.

We drove back to Vitoria and had (a shitty) dinner but I was too tired to care at that point, and crashed that night, too.

The last day, we stuck around Vitoria for the day. It was cloudy, but it never rained. We walked around the city center, seeing the cathedral, museums, and various other old buildings. There were a lot of walls with beautiful murals painted on them. We also saw this deep well where, in the past, people had packed snow down during the winter so that they'd be able to have ice in the summer.

We had lunch at a really great restaurant where for 12 euros each we ate two courses, got bottles of water, a bottle of wine, and dessert, so that was amazing. Then, to end our time there, we went out to this wetland natural reserve and walked around for a little bit. That was beautiful!

Finally, it was time to go home, so we drove back through the mountains (to avoid the toll roads) and got home that evening. We were exhausted, but everything about the Basque country was so worth it! It was beautiful!

One last bit before I finish... none of these pictures or what I talk about can capture the disparity of the Basque country. It really is a different country. The people there conversationally use Basque, and all the signs are in both Basque and Spanish. There are signs on every building and in every town promoting the independence of the Basque country from Spain, and it feels pretty intense. As beautiful as everything was, I couldn't help but have that all in my mind while we were there. The politics behind it is very divided, so it was really interesting to notice all the ways they both rebel against Spain, and are a part of it, too. Anyway, I just thought I'd share my thoughts on that!
Thanks for reading! Agur! (Goodbye!)

Salamanca Provides

We had a long weekend last weekend, so Joaquín and I decided to go somewhere, but he had a conference all day Saturday, so we had to stick close to home.
I ended up taking a train for my friend Steve's house in Avila, to the west of Madrid. I had been to Avila before, but I wanted to hang out with him. It was actually a pretty great visit. We played cards and walked around the town (Avila still has an intact wall surrounding the old city, with some great views), and just caught up. I hadn't seen him in a while, so it was really great.
Joaquín came to pick me up Sunday morning and we drove the rest of the way to Salamanca (another hour away from Madrid). Salamanca, has Spain's oldest university, as well as a dual-cathedral thing going for it. It's a beautiful city.
We got to Salamanca around lunch time, dropped our things off at our airbnb (a ridiculous house on the edge of town) and walked to a street our host said had a lot of bars with tapas. We stopped at an Asturian bar and got Sidra and pinchos (and the bartender poured the Sidra the traditional Asturian way, which, since I've never been to Asturias, I did not know about. It was so cool!).
So we went from lunch to Plaza Mayor (which was scarily reminiscent of the plaza mayor in Madrid... it felt like I was in the same place). We walked around the old part of town for a bit, some of which the streets were covered in sand and hay for the filming of a TV show (Still Star Crossed). It was really cool because it made it seem like we were in medieval times a bit. We went to the cathedral and climbed up the tower, taking pictures of the views along the way.

After that, we walked to see "The Facade." So, because Salamanca University is so old, the main buildings are stone and the facade of the university is renowned throughout Spain. (Recently, I had a class of students try to come up with the 7 Wonders of Spain, and a lot of them wanted to put the Facade on the list). It's famous, but not just because it's a beautiful facade. It's mostly famous for the frog. On one part of the facade, someone carved some skulls and on one of the skulls, there's a frog. It's not there for any reason. It has nothing to do with the rest of the theme of the Facade. But it's there, and it is basically the mascot of Salamanca.

But that isn't even the only weird thing carved into facades in Salamanca. In the facade of the new cathedral, somebody carved an astronaut.

So Salamanca has some weird facade stuff going on.
After we saw the facade, we walked around to find somewhere to get coffee, then we went to this garden. There's a book written entirely as dialogue in 1499 called "La Celestina" or "The Tragicomedy of Calixto and Melibea," and a garden in Salamanca features prominently in the book (it's the place with Calixto and Melibea do the nasty out of wedlock!) Well, it's a very lovely garden, El Huerto de Calixto y Melibea.

After that, we crossed the Roman bridge and looked at the town from across the river, then we walked back and got dinner at "La Mandala."
The next day (Monday, May 2) we checked out of the airbnb and drove to the old town to rent some bikes and bikes around for a while. So this is when the crazy shit went down. We parked the car and started walking to the bike rental place. We saw the vans for filming the tv show and, on a whim, decided to walk over and see if anything interesting was happening. There were a few people around, but we were the only ones not part of the production. Then, a van pulls up and we speculated there were actors inside... and there were! Three actors got out in medieval clothes and then I recognized one of them... it was Giles! Anthony Stewart Head, who played Giles in Buffy and of course I LOVE Buffy. They all started walking into the cathedral and I thought "well, it was cool to have seen him," but then he turned around and walked back to the van. I guess he needed the driver to get something, but either way, Joaquín waved and said "Could we take a picture with you?" He asked us to wait a moment while he talked to the driver, then walked over (like five feet), and we took a picture! I still can't believe it happened!

After that miracle, we rented our bikes and biked around for a couple hours. We biked along the river first, then decided to bike in the country a bit, from Salamanca to a small town 3 kilometers away. It was right in the fields and we saw a herd of sheep, so that was really lovely.

We biked back to the river and ate lunch at a bar on the banks. After that, we returned the bikes, drove back to Avila, and hung out with Steve again before driving the rest of the way back to Madrid. And of course, Clio was very excited when we got back (she was also very curious about my backpack).