Until now. A more appropriate question might be, what took us so long? We’re in San Sebastian, the heart of Basque country. The Basques may be the oldest civilization in Europe, with a distinct language that bears no resemblance to other tongues in Europe or elsewhere. San Sebastian and Bilbao were industrialized cities in an otherwise agrarian and impoverished Spain. The Spanish and French governments alternated between tolerating and brutally oppressing the Basques over the centuries, but now there’s a truce of sorts.
We took a train down to Bordeaux, then rented a car. Our friends Bruce and Laurie had taken a separate train and got stranded in Hendaye, the last town before the French-Spanish border. We picked them up and proceeded to San Sebastian.
The city is much like Seattle topographically, with a coastline and mountains in the periphery. The architecture is a mix of old, renovated old, and modern. Our rental apartment is gorgeous, two blocks away from the Cathedral on a pedestrian street. The kitchen is suitable for real cooking, with a three-burner induction range, microwave and convection ovens, good-sized refrigerator, and real washer and dryer. Even better, the building has an elevator and decent stairs for my poor knees.
The food here is excellent. The Basques were early adopters of Western Hemisphere ingredients such as corn, tomatoes, and peppers. In addition, Basque sheep milk goes into excellent cheeses. The dining culture is pintxos – small plates that would be called tapas elsewhere in Spain. One goes into a bar/restaurant, orders a pintxo and a drink, pays, then goes onto the next bar to repeat the process. This is too much alcohol for me and trying to negotiate crowded bars in the time of Covid is risky business. So we’ve gone to two sit-down pintxo restaurants so far. Thursday night we went to an amazing restaurant, Restaurante Rua 887. Laurie, Julian, and I split a huge rib steak that was probably the best piece of beef I’ve ever had. Julian and Laurie had Basque cheesecake for dessert.
We’ve also done some dinners at the apartment. Julian made a typical pintxo last night – open-faced Iberico ham sandwiches with sheep cheese, olives, and sun-dried tomatoes from the Brexta Market. See below.
More tasty experiences to come.
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