Tolosa Wednesday

Chris and I went to the town of Tolosa this week for our Wednesday entertainment. Tolosa is to the south and slightly east of Zarautz, about 30 minutes by car, about an hour by public transportation, which is how we went.

When we rolled in on a chilly, grey morning, Tolosa looked a bit grim. It didn’t help that everything was closed except for a few bakeries. We couldn’t get into either of the main churches or visit the nuns at the Santa Clara convent. Even the tourist office was shut tight at 10 AM. We roamed the old quarter of the town reading the plaques on the buildings, had a cafe con leche and some sweet rolls and waited for the tourist office to open at 11 to see what else we should see in town.

While the gentleman at the tourist office, who spoke English with a Scottish Spanish accent (which was wacky to listen to), was very excited to show off his city, it turned out we had seen just about everything already, at least what is available on a grey Wednesday morning in the winter.

The pride of Tolosa is the location of their old town in a narrow valley on what was once an island in the Oria river. Peaks surround the town on two sides, mountains from which we were told the Duke of Wellington rained cannon shot down on the city during the Napoleonic wars. At this point, the Tolosans recognized that the city walls weren’t really going to help them and tore them down, completely buried one branch of the river in an underground canal, and got on with expanding their town. Being at a crossroads connecting several main roads of the Iberian peninsula to France allowed the town to grow, and the buildings from the 14th to 18th centuries show the money that must have flowed into the town. They were even the capital of the province where we live, Gipuzkoa, briefly in the mid-1800s.

However, that was the highwater mark. As our Scottish-speaking friend told us, “some Spanish queen was staying here, and her doctor told her she should go to the sea because bathing in the waters was healthy, so she moved the capital to San Sebastian, which was just a bunch of pirates and smelly sardine fisherman at the time.” And that was that. Tolosa’s time was done.

To be fair, there was a little more to San Sebastian in the middle of the 1800s than pirates and sardine fisherman, but it did blossom into the Belle Epoque beauty that it is and a stop for the 19th-century jet-set about the same time the capital moved. Sour grapes may be justified in this case for Tolosa.

In addition to this history, we also learned about a famous sweet shop we should visit and the Tolosa International Puppet Centre.

We took the tourist office up on the sweet shop, that of Rafa Gorratxategi, where we were helped by a kind young woman who had done a semester abroad at Boise State University in Idaho. Apparently there is a thriving Basque community in Idaho, and they teach the Basque language at the university. Who knew? We bought some of Mr. Gorratxategi’s cookies to take home to the children, and our helper gave us some of his homemade chocolate and cheese turron to sample as we roamed Tolosa. Only after tasting the cookies later this weekend did we realize we should have bought a few pounds of that turron.

Chris and I are not really puppet people, but the tourist guy was so excited about this puppet center/museum that we walked by it given that there wasn’t much else to do. One word: creeeeeppeee! We’re not talking about Oscar the Grouch here; we’re talking about realistic-looking puppets and marionettes that I can only imagine cackling and dragging a cleaver in one hand. Even worse, he specifically said, “You won’t believe it; it’s like they come to life.” Umm, we’ll pass.

On the nothing-to-do front, the tourist guy suggested we come back on Saturday when they have their market of local produce and goods and apparently the town comes to life like the puppets. Since that wasn’t going to happen, we instead opted to hike up one of the looming nearby mountains to the Ermita de Nuestra Señora de Izaskun, because who doesn’t love a good hermitage? We had some lovely views on our walk to the hermitage, which was a small chapel and was open, unlike the churches in town. Across from the church was a small restaurant where we stopped to have caldo (a hot broth served with bread) and a Spanish tortilla (not the flatbread like a Mexican tortilla, but the Spanish omelet), both made for us in a kitchen we could see by someone’s grandma.

Since the place was mostly empty, I was able to engage the proprietor in Spanish conversation that consisted of more than, “the check please.” We learned that many Basque left Spain to go fishing in the Americas during the Spanish Civil War and many of them never moved back. He had relatives in the US and in Argentina and had visited both. He even has a friend who moved with his wife to North Dakota two years ago to work in the wind farms, and now they have a child who was born there. I said, “El es un Americano ahora (he’s an American now),” and he said, “Quizas (maybe).”

In the afternoon on the way home, Chris and I were standing at a train station halfway between San Sebastian and Zarautz where we often find ourselves standing, when we were mistaken for locals, and a man and woman asked us which train would take them to Orio, a tiny town just to the east of Zarautz. We were pleased to know the answer, shared it, and this lead to another extended Spanish conversation as we all waited for the same train. They were as surprised to learn that we were Americans living in Zarautz as we were to learn that he was Egyptian and she was Chilean and they lived in San Sebastian.

So two things came of this outing: 1) I may have spoken more Spanish on Wednesday than I’ve spoken the entire time we’ve been here, and 2) when you start moving around the world and talking to people, you really start to realize just how much people do move around the world and how most of them are quite nice. And then I have to wonder, why is it that the not-nice ones seem to be in charge in so many countries at the moment? Sometimes it seems as random as towns rising and falling because some queen wants to go bathe in the sea.

Pagoeta’s talking tree

Last Wednesday, Chris and I resumed our “Walking Wednesdays” by taking the knight bus (see “Weekend wanderings to the hills and the sea“) up to our local national park, Parque Natural de Pagoeta, to hike the SL-GI 4002 trail, which we had not done previously. True to its namesake in the Harry Potter series, the knight bus had changed shape since we last rode it. This time it was just a mini-bus whereas earlier it had been full-sized. Nonetheless, it delivered us to the trailhead successfully.

At this particular trailhead, there is an example of one of the odd ways we have found Spaniards memorializing history: randomly placed, ancient road rollers. This isn’t the only one of these we have seen. In fact, there is one about a block from our apartment in the heart of Zarautz. We aren’t sure if they are just really proud of having made roads or if they are just putting them up on blocks and calling them public art so as not to have to move them from wherever they died.

We headed into the woods from our road roller in hopes of seeing some native fauna since the SL-GI 4002 is called the “Fauna Trail”. We saw beautiful beech forests, leafless for the winter, and babbling mountain streams. We saw carved sandstone crosses in the woods (where you are supposed to humiliate yourself, but “humiliate” isn’t quite a direct translation from Spanish to English– I don’t think dancing naked with a lampshade on your head is quite what they had in mind) and a dumpster shaped like an old RV– actually it was an old RV that has just been used as a dumpster and left on a dilapidated farm.

And we did not see the fauna we were hoping for, deer and roe deer, but we did see farm dogs and some cattle that, according to the sign next to their field, are native to the area since the times of cave paintings and endangered. I’ve never thought of domesticated animals as in danger of going extinct, but maybe they just don’t get fat enough to be good beef or something.

However, the most lively thing we saw on our walk was flora, not fauna. In addition to the many small flowers we saw (in January(!) which I don’t even think is normal for this mild climate), we saw a talking tree. We could hear it from about 50 yards away creaking and screeching. On closer inspection, the old beech was mostly hollow and had a crack running almost the length of its trunk. As the wind turned the upper branches, the trunk twisted and heaved, and the crack opened and closed like a vertical mouth, making all kinds of racket. Given the movement, I don’t expect that tree will be upright much longer. In fact, standing next to it gave me the heebie-jeebies because I didn’t want to end up underneath it.

Perhaps we’ll visit again in the spring to see how the tree is faring, and we’ll bring our lampshades for the cross.

Wednesday in the geopark

If you are tired of hearing tales of our adventures in the Spanish countryside, stop reading now. You have been warned.

On Wednesday, Chris and I took the Topo at 8 AM to the town of Deba, which is three coastal towns west of us. Our plan was to walk a nine-mile section of the GR-121 from Deba to Zumaia and then bus or train back to Zarautz. This section of the trail traverses the Basque Coast Geopark and offers some fairly amazing views of the flysch rock formations in the area (more on that later).

First, of course, we had to have our Spanish breakfast on the small main square of Deba, including cafe con leche, tostada con tomate, and a napolitana de chocolate (sort of like a chocolate croissant but rectangular instead of triangular). We also took a peek in the local church, a somber, foreboding 15th-century affair definitely built for a vengeful god rather than a forgiving one.

But then, we couldn’t find the trail out of town, even with the help of our trusty iPhones. After some wandering, we finally saw the trail markings next to Willy Wonka’s glass elevator. This began a theme of our walk: trail infrastructure. There was a lot of it on this particular hike– from bridges over highways and streams to old railroad tunnels to ropes for moving up and down slippery hills There’s even a picnic area, which isn’t super common on the trails we’ve taken recently. Clearly, the geopark really wants folks to have access to this area.

And for good reason. The views are spectacular, even for a coast known for spectacular views. The spectacular views are courtesy of the flysch rock formations mentioned early. When the tectonic plate that Spain is on hit the one that the rest of Europe is on a few million years ago, it pushed the horizontal layers of rock on the seabed vertical. That made the flysch which are these vertical layers of sandstone and limestone pushing up from the current seafloor. Walking across them is like walking across the edges of the pages of an upturned book. And scientists say that is essentially what the flysch provides, a giant geological history book. For example, there’s a dark streak of pages near Zumaia that shows when a huge chunk of marine life died very quickly. This streak of rock matches the age of rock in the Yucatan peninsula in Mexico where a meteor struck which is thought to have been the catalyst for the end of the dinosaurs. The scale of this information is mindboggling and walking across these pages of geologic history is humbling.

And it looks really cool too. But to get the cool views, you have to time it right. At high tide, the cool stuff is underwater. We did the timing, and we even had some sun and temperatures in the 60s F for much of the day. This included a picnic on a hillside overlooking the ocean with a stray sheep who didn’t seem to mind our company.

The trail was muddy though, so trench foot is still an option. Chris was particularly adept at finding what I think I’ll call “mudnure” in the cow pastures. It’s not quite mud and not quite manure, but it is completely disgusting when it swells up around your ankles.

We’re already scheming about when to take the kids on this walk. Perhaps we will be more successful at avoiding the mudnure then, or we’ll just keep our eyes on the amazing scenery and lift the hems of our skirts a little higher.

Pasajes de San Juan

Last Wednesday Gill and I had the pleasure of walking to Pasajes from San Sebastián, and we almost stayed dry. Though it’s been raining here for weeks, we were lucky enough to avoid the rain until we were about 2 kilometers from the train station where we caught a train back to Zarautz.

The walk itself was along the coast with many breathtaking views of the Bay of Biscay. Just over the hill from San Sebastian (a major metropolitan area), the route felt quite remote and even tranquil. We were surrounded by lush vegetation (a benefit of the nonstop rain, I suppose) and the roar of waves smashing against rocks, and we essentially had the trail to ourselves.

At the end of the trail as we walked down into the port of Pasajes, we were greeted with a moment of sunshine and a stunning view of the bay entrance. We didn’t have time to explore the city because we needed to return to Zarautz to greet the chavales (teenagers) after school. Maybe we we will go back again for pintxoing.

Here are a few snapshots:

Wet Walking Wednesday

Last Wednesday it was raining (again – or still, depending on your perspective), so Gill and I decided to postpone our planned 15K hike until things dry out a bit. Instead we walked to Getaria and back, along the coastal road, in the rain. (Click the title above to see a panoramic view of our walk in the banner if you haven’t already.)

Monument to Juan Sebastian Elkano

When we arrived in Getaria, we stopped in the visitor’s center and learned all about Juan Sebastian Elkano. He was a Spanish explorer of Basque decent (born in Getaria) who gets credit for completing the first circumnavigation of the Earth. This feat (the voyage Magellan started) took nearly four years to complete, and Elkano died of malnutrition roughly four years later on another voyage. The display honoring Elkano was modest, but the statue outside confirms that the people of Getaria are honored to call Elkano one of their own.

Txakoli with bacalao al pil pil and deep-fried goodness at Restaurante Politena

And then we pintxoed (my new favorite, non-existent verb) before walking back to Zarautz. In the rain.

Iglesia de San Salvador in Getaria

Camino Walking Wednesday

(Click the title above to see our favorite image from this hike in the banner if you haven’t already.)

Because of our weekend trip into a land without wifi, we are a little behind in posting. Here we have last week’s “Walking Wednesday.” Chris and I took the bus to Orio (and yes, it sounds just like the cookie), the next town to the east, and walked a trail there that starts at the town beach and rises into the hills along the coast before turning inland.

But before we could begin such a grueling hike (umm . . . not really), we needed sustenance, so we stopped at a little bar on the beach, blasting some traditional Mexican tunes oddly enough, for cafe con leche and a bocata, a little sandwich. This particular little sandwich had Spanish tortilla, a nice slice of jamon, and just a hint of crab salad on a fresh baguette. I’m still dreaming about that sandwich. I want to adopt it, name it, and let it sleep in my bed.

The coastal section of this trail has spectacular views and winds through some small stands of pine on the hillsides that smell like the smell of pine that scented candles are always trying to replicate.

However, once the trail crests the hills heading away from the coast, it comes in contact with the noise and views of the AP-8, the four-lane highway that runs through this part of the world, and is less appealing. Interestingly, it is also at this point that our small trail joined the coastal or northern route of the Camino de Santiago, and we were inundated with signs seeking to make sure we knew the way. The seashell is the symbol of the route; the crosses are ubiquitous; and the official colors of the route are blue and yellow.

So, in that spirit, you know you might be on the Camino de Santiago if you see any of the following signs or symbols (we did not lose our way):

Walking Wednesday Two

Though there was a 100% chance of rain and it did, Chris and I found a route up into the hills from Zarautz that appeared to be primarily paved or concrete country roads, meaning less slipping and sliding in the local clay-based mud, so we took our walk today.

one sign on the PR-GI-34
Gill contemplates the one sign on the PR-GI-34 trail with Pagoeta National Park in the background

It turns out, the route wasn’t overwhelmingly scenic contrasted with our last Walking Wednesday, but it had its charms. One of which was not the fact that the entire trail included only one signpost, which was at about the halfway point and pointed in a misleading direction. After getting through the industrial outskirts north of town, we made our way into the apple orchards on the lower slopes of the hills and the txakoli vineyard higher up. The ominous, lowering skies and fog rising from the hollows reminded us of the Smoky Mountains of the southern US.

We didn’t see much local fauna other than farm dogs, farm cats, and a bull whose attention we caught when the trail we were on took us through his pasture. Chris was a bit freaked out and forgot to take his picture, but he was very handsome I assure you.

Txakoli vineyards and farms
Txakoli vineyards to the right and a farm in the distance in the hills above Zarautz. There is a very handsome bull in the field just to the right of that clump of trees in the center.

That is an odd thing about hiking trails in Spain. They will often take you through someone’s pasture (just lift whatever latch is on the gate and be sure to put it back so the cows or sheep don’t get out) or right next to someone’s house up what looks like a driveway, often having to skirt barking dogs on short chains that either want to be your best buddy or tear your throat out– it can be hard to tell which with all the commotion they make.

traffic signal in the wild
The Lion, the Witch, and the . . . Traffic Signal?

Our favorite bit of oddness on this particular walk was a traffic signal on the side of a tiny road in the middle of nowhere. As soon as I saw it, I thought of the lamppost Lucy encounters in the snowy woods when she first visits Narnia in C.S. Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Like the lamppost, it seemed magically out of place and thus intriguing. After contemplating the traffic signal and continuing our walk, we do think we discovered its reason for being, but I won’t share our hypothesis. The weirdness is more fun. We did not spot Mr. Tumnus nor the White Witch, but we are keeping an eye out.

Our return to Zarautz took us under the highway (the A8 for those of you keeping track at home) on the edge of town, and we realized there was a portion of a mural there that really should have been included in our VW van collection, so, tardily, we offer it here. The pergola through which the van appears to be driving is on the beach about two blocks from our apartment, but parking of camper vans is not permitted there, despite appearances to the contrary.

mural under the A8
The iconic VW van even makes it into local murals.

The pintxo game

Chris and I had a day of small culinary adventures yesterday. We started the morning with the not-very-exciting-but-necessary task of shopping for warm and dry winter boots or shoes for the children. While we don’t need snow boots, something that will be good in the damp cold is in order.

This outing, while not entirely successful, provided the excuse to stop into a local bakery for pastries and cafe con leche. Today we opted for the pastel vasco and the pastel bergara. Pastel vasco is Spanish for “Basque cake.” It comes in various sizes, and we chose the individual serving. It’s round with a brownish top and looks like a wide muffin with a flat top. The yellow cake on the inside is dense, moist, and sweet. The Spanish say it has the flavor of nata, which directly translates as “cream,” but it is more of a sugary pudding flavor. Whatever it is, it’s good with coffee. The pastel bergara had a sugar syrup drizzled on top and a slight almond flavor to the cake, which was fluffier than the pastel vasco. Of the two, I favored the pastel vasco. I’ll be having that again.

pastel vasco (the little Basque flag signals that it is a local delight)
pastel bergara

In the afternoon, Chris and I left the children to complete their homework in an apartment well-stocked with leftovers and went into San Sebastian, where we were also looking for winter boots for Chris, though in reality, the boots were just an excuse for a date. After roaming the center of the city on our shoe search, we climbed Monte Urgull, the large hill between the bay and the river which always shows up in pictures of San Sebastian, and roamed the castle ruins there under the watchful eyes of a very stern and imposing Jesus statue.

Coming down from the mountain, we headed into the Gros neighborhood in search of pintxos, the little morsels of goodness for which the Basque region is famous. As is usually the case, the first place we wanted to visit was closed. This is practically a tradition with us. Fortunately, on the same short block, we found Bar Ricardo, and I found myself smiling with relief.

Here’s why: What no one tells you when they ooh and ah about pintxos is that ordering pintxos is a contact sport, or at least it can be, and that for extranjeros (foreigners) it’s a sport for which the rules are never clearly explained. In a crowded, deafening bar this can be enough to make one walk away in exasperation from the gleaming delicacies just out of literal and cultural reach. At times, this has made me dread the thing everyone is almost obligated to enjoy here in Basque country.

gilda and beer at Bar Ricardo

However, in a clean, well-lighted place like Bar Ricardo, inhabited by a smattering of old men and one rough-looking dude with two neon orange prosthetic legs and a sausage-grinder voice like Lemmy from Motorhead, it’s easier to get one’s bearings. In a place like this, even though the Herman Munster bartender is looking at you with disdain and handing you the menu with the handwritten English translations, you can stand confidently at the bar and order your two cañas (small glasses of beer) and two gildas (a skewer with olives, pepperoncini, and anchovies) in your bad Spanish and give yourself a little space to think while he slips the menu behind the counter again. And then reading the signs on the wall, you can see that one of their specialties is croquetas de mejillon (mussel croquettes), and you can order one of those like you know what the heck you’re doing. When all of that happens, and you avoid having to talk to the extremely convivial Lemmy guy, then you can enjoy the beauty that is pintxos.

The alternative is that you walk into a pintxo bar where you can’t hear yourself think, you can’t reach the bar itself, where the pintxos and various other bits of information await, and even if you could reach it the chance of meaningful communication with the bar staff is nil. But say you overcome all of those obstacles and actually get food and a beverage, two questions immediately present themselves: where am I supposed to put this stuff down so I can eat and drink it, and how and when am I supposed to pay?

In this sport with hidden rules, I have discovered the answer to the first question: almost anywhere. In an uncrowded place, patrons just eat at the bar or at a table. In a crowded situation, there are often ledges inside or barrels outside for this purpose, and in a pinch the steps of the pet store next door will work–as long as the store itself is closed.

I still don’t know the answer to the payment question. I just play that one as it comes. If they hand me a tab or shout at me as I walk away from the bar, I’ll pay then. If not, I’ll pay later, often having to remind them of what I ordered, which makes me feel so worthy of trust that I can barely stand myself.

pintxos at Bodega Donostarria

After our delicious gildas and croquettes and mediocre beers, we wandered to another recommended destination in Gros for pintxos, Bodega Donostarria. As we approached in a slight drizzle, I had that sinking full-pintxo-bar feeling in my stomach. This place was clearly more popular than Bar Ricardo. The tables outside were overflowing; beers and wine glasses were perched precariously on the window sills as patrons stood and held their small plates of deliciousness in their hands.

Nonetheless, Chris and I waded inside like we knew what we were doing, and as we perused the food and people at the bar, someone shifted and enough space opened up for us to get a shoulder in. I could see the goal line from there. In moments, I had the attention of the bartender and seconds later she was pouring the cañas. The cañas aren’t even about the beer; they’re about starting the conversation, the dance, with the waitstaff. As she placed the beers on the bar, then we could have an opening in the hectic cultural maze (or minefield) of the situation for me to ask about the food options on the bar. In this case, this lead to pastel de pescado (think a rectangle of seafood mousse) on toast topped with a creme sauce and shrimp and a pintxo indurain (a hunk of bonito– like a tuna– with a gilda on top drizzled in olive oil). These are the times that make me realize why Spaniards as a rule eat slowly and savor their food. I may have moaned in ecstasy.

And then, it was over. Having successfully played the pintxo game not once but twice, we were back out into the rain, heading for the train and our teenagers and the dishes they had left in the sink, as if it had all been a dream . . . an exquisite, flavor-filled dream.

Walking Wednesday

As those of you who work for Minneapolis Public Schools already know, Wednesdays are often called Walking Wednesday because in the fall and spring bus riders are dropped off several blocks from school so they may enjoy a short walk to school. Well, Gill and I have decided to create our own version of Walking Wednesday since I do not teach on Wednesdays. Today we took a bus from Zarautz to Zumaia, two towns to the west along the coast, and we then walked back to Zarautz after enjoying a coffee and delicious pastries in Zumaia. Our walk was windy (35 km) but beautiful, roughly 12 kilometers, through the hills along the coast. Here’s proof:

Adaptations

There are things happen in Zarautz, and perhaps in all of Spain, that I’m trying to embrace to better fit in. I’ve had some success (e.g. I now happily eat lunch at 3pm), but other cultural “norms” have been a little more challenging for me. Here are a few:

1) Wearing an itsy-bitsy-teeny-weeny-bikini on the beach. Or not wearing one at all. Yep, nudity is the norm on parts of the beach in Zarautz. Young. Old. Fit. Not so fit. They all do it. Trust me: no one wants me to adapt to this behavior.

2) Consuming tiny things and tiny amounts of things:  sunflower seeds, coffees, beers, pintxos, cookies – they’re all super small to my American expectations. Perhaps if I could embrace the tiny, I, too, would be tiny (and could adapt more easily to #1). Sigh.

3) Avoiding the five inch slugs that lounge on the hiking trails. No kidding. Every time I see one I have to stop and marvel at the various shades of green and brown and just how odd and slimy they look. Not to mention the squished ones….

4) Dogs, dogs, dogs. Everywhere there are dogs. People love their dogs. I know I’m the odd one out on this topic, but I think dogs may outnumber people here. Well, maybe not. The good news is that most of the poop gets picked up.

5) My children do math in pen. They tell me that all children here do their math work in pen. It drives me mad. What’s wrong with using a pencil?

6) I’m still not clear on when we need restaurant reservations and when we don’t, though we did have one meal out, and it was delightful. 

I recognize that these are small and perhaps insignificant observations, but they bring levity during the process of assimilating. Ultimately I would like to fully embrace the norms and cultural customs of my host country. After all, I chose to live here, I do really enjoy being here, and I want to make the most of my time in España. With my clothes on.