Madrid – Day 13

Our last day in Spain was spent nice and leisurely.  We slept in, organized a bit and then caught the train to Puerta del Sol in search of Squid sandwiches at the nearby Plaza Mayor.  A big baguette full of fried calamari?  yes please!

We wandered around shopping for awhile and eventually made our way to our final cultural endeavour, el Museo Reina Sofia.  Much more exciting than the Prado since it is focused on Modern Art, but not as good as the Guggenheim – mostly because the temporary exhibits weren’t as interesting.  Their major piece though is Picasso’s Guernica which is HUGE – much larger than most of his pieces.  There were several Picassos and lots of Dali since it was fun.

After siesta time we ended the food binges the way we started:  a big plate of bread, manchego and jamon iberico along with vino tinto.  Adios Espana!

Madrid – Day 12

Started the morning by figuring out the Metro system and getting ourselves to the middle of town for a bike tour.  There were just four of us plus the guide so it was nice to be in a small group.  Madrid is not a bike-friendly town so at times it was a little exciting trying to bike along with the crazy city traffic.  It was a good tour though because we saw several churches, streets and view points we probably wouldn’t have visited otherwise.  For example, who knew there is a recovered Egyptian temple in the middle of the city?  and a big plant conservatory in the middle of one of the parks?  Towards the end of the ride the rain started rolling in so the last half hour was brutal – very cold and wet, biking uphill in traffic to get back to the shop.  But, we survived.

By the end we were starving and drenched, so we ducked into the Museo de Jamon for lunch, a popular local chain restaurant/butcher shop.  ham soup, ham croquettes, ham sandwiches, cerveza – mmmm.

The sun peeked back out by the time were done, so we walked towards the Palacio Real, our afternoon spot of the day.  On the way we encountered a super upscale public market that was actually celebrating it’s first birthday.  It was as if Metropolitan Market turned itself into a public market – counter after counter of high quality stuff.  It was fun to wander and we got a free piece fo birthday cake!

The Palacio Royal is beautiful.  Teh Royal Family lives elsewhere these days, but the formal rooms here are still used for important business.  We toured the Armory, pharmacy and lots of royal rooms.  The chandeliers were unbelievable.   In one room they have 4 instruments made Stradivarius – only 300 still exist in the world total.  The pharmacy had jars full of all different plants and herbs.  All very cool.

As we ended our visit, it turned out we had awesome timing.  Last night Atletico de Madrid won the Europa League title and they were scheduled to arrive at the Basilica next door in just ten minutes!  so we hung out to enjoy the parade.  Once we arrived home later and saw continuing coverage of their celebration, we clearly had been in a good spot as it was not too crazy or overpacked.  Other big squares around the city were super jammed as the team toured the streets in their double decker bus.  (check out my Facebook page for video!)

After siesta time we had dinner at El Caldero, famous for their paella.  We ordered the house specialty, Arroz al caldero and the house sangria and it was all delicious.  The main course arrived with a big bowl of mayonnaise which scared me, but after a few bites we decided to figure out what to do with it.  It turned out to be a super garlic-y aioli so when mixed into the dish made it into a kind of creamy risotto.  Mmm…

El Escorial & Madrid – Day 11

We slept in a bit, packed up our things, grabbed some bakery goods and juice and then hit the road out of Segovia.  Before entering Madrid we planned to visit two spots outside of town, El Escorial and the Valley of the Fallen.  Unfortunately the Valley fo the Fallen was closed for maintenance and repairs so El Escorial it was.

This place is huge!  Built by Phillip II it nearly bankrupted the government for its construction.  He envisioned it as a retreat for Royals, a mausoleum for Royals and a monastery.  It was from here that he directed the Spanish Inquisition.  despite it’s size it’s actually not that decorative or interesting – mostly just stone work.  My favorite exhibits were the downstairs room showing how it was built and featuring lots of the tools and models used; as well as the upstairs library.  There was also a room lined with old maps that was fun to look at – they had found Baja, but everything north was a big blob.

From El Escorial BK expertly navigated the Yaris into town and over to the airport for it’s return.  We then caught a taxi to our hotel and settled in.  The hotel is fine but one of my first priceline failures.  you take gamble when you priceline and while this is technically a 4* in the city center, its on the edge in the businessy area next to the train station and I wouldn’t rate it 4 stars.  But we’ll survive.

After looking over the huge map we plotted our plan fo rteh evening – Hora Feliz, Prado during the free hours from 6:00-8:00pm, and then dinner.  Madrid is a big city – I’m not sure I’m thrilled to be in a big city after all the fun little towns.  traffic everywhere, having to be on guard for pickpockets, not being able to wander with abandon in fear you’ll run into the bad part of town.We’ll how it goes.

Hora feliz was good – we went to a Rick Steves recommended wine and cheese shop and enjoyed a huge plate of spanish cheeses and wine.  Refuled since we had missed lunch we strolled to the Prado, one of the premier museums in Europe.  It was not my cup of tea nor BK’s – I’m glad we went during the free hours.  Like the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam it is full of dark, gloomy, religious, portraity stuff and that’s about it.  Some people spend all day there – we were done in an hour.

We walked to the spot we were hoping to go for dinner but it was all closed up – maybe tomorrow?  And since we were actually still a little full from the unexpectedly large cheese plate we stopped into a nearby microbrewery for a beer instead.  As we wandered we noticed lots of futbol fans out and about in their gear.  It turns out Atletico Madrid was playing a big up in Hamburg, so all the bars were slowly starting to fill with spectators (we caught the end fo the game back at home and they won!  I think they won the Europa Liga title – exciting!)

Post beers we wandered home watching more sports fans, stumbling upon a food fair and grabbing some helados to finish of our beer & cheese dinner

Segovia – Day 10

Segovia is a cute little town and we had a fun day exploring it.  First we stopped at the bakery downstairs for juice and croissants in the Plaza Mayor before heading down to the ancient Roman Aqueduct:  2,000 years old, 2500 feet long, 100 feet high, 20,000 granite blocks with no mortar.  Amazing!

Next we wandered to another point to visit the Alcazar palace – lots of moorish influences throughout the interior, but very german/austrian on the exterior:

The big cathedral in town is the last big Gothic building built in Spain, but was finished during the Renaissance, hence the domes at the top instead of spires:

and lastly, we strolled outside the city walls over to the Vera Cruz church – a 12-sided iglesia built by the Knights Templar and apparently housed a piece of the “true cross” at some point, whatever that might mean:

After some siesta time watching How I met your Mother in Espanol, we went out to dinner at Meson de Candido so BK could have Roasted Suckling Pig, a specialty of the region (I had sole).  I was afraid they would bring a whole pig but luckily it was only like the back I suppose – good for me viewing wise, but it had a lot of fat and skin that BK didn’t want to eat and not enough meat.  he said the meat there was was good though.  They also brought us a plate of local cheeses which were yummy.

Finally, we ended the night taking some evening shots of the Aqueduct:

La Rioja to Segovia – Day 9

Today was a pretty boring day activity wise – we spent the morning enjoying the last few hours of our luxurious 5* hotel, even splurging on room service for breakfast.  Then we relunctly climbed back into the Yaris for the big drive down to Segovia.  On the way out though we did a quick drive-by another fancy winery, Ysios:

Ysios was designed by Santiago Calatrava, whose bridge you may remember from Bilbao.  We’ve also seen his work at the Bilbao airport so thanks to all my previous tutelage from Mars Bar, I’m turning BK into quite the Calatrava expert.

the drive to Segovia was pretty through the green hills, and fairly easy as the bulk of it was on a major north/south highway.  As we broke off the main road to head into Segovia the rain returned ands even some hail.  But by the time we settled into our hotel right on the main square, the sun had peeked back out so we could wander for food.  Segovia seems like a cute town and I look forward to exploring it tomorrow!

Bilbao – Day 7

Woke up in San Sebastian and enjoyed our last breakfast at Bar Gorrito.  We also enjoyed some churros and chocolate and caught a kayaking race in the bay before checking out of our highly recommended hotel, Pension Alameda (great location and price, super friendly owners).

Heading to Bilbao we made a quick stop at Museo Cemento Recloza – yes, that’s right, BK found us a cement museum to visit.  We did so in hopes of buying Keith-O a T-shirt but sadly it was the one museum with no gift shop.

We took the backroads to Bilbao, passing through lots of little towns and villages, keeping and eye on the many cyclists and peletons pedaling their way through the mountains.

the main reason most folks come to Bilbao, ourselves included, to visit the Frank Gehry designed Guggenheim Museum and it does not disappoint.  Our streak of better weather was continuing, so we strolled all the way around externally first to snap photos before going in.  The swooping lines and postion on the river are really impressive.

Inside the art was very modern with some cool pieces and some that make you go huh?  Most impressive was the temporary exhibit of work by Anish Kapoor who designed “the bean” in Chicago.  There was a room of mirrors similar to the effect the bean has which was fun to explore.

From the Guggenheim we strolled along the river to the Casco Vieja, passing by Santiago Calatrava’s pedestrian bridge and several other public works of heart.  In the Old Town we munched some pintxos and vino tinto before calling it a night.

San Sebastian – Day 6

We woke up to sun and celebrated by going back to the same bar for breakfast because it is so delicious.  I felt like I should try new stuff but the fluffy omelette sandwich and mini baguette with jamon and blue cheese are so good.  Seriously, both things are so simple but so good – the wedge of blue cheese is just perfect.  Mmmmm…

Next we strolled to the Aquarium which is quite good – San Sebastian has a long maritime history, so the first few exhibits are historical before you dip down to the fish tanks.  They have some jellies and lots of local things like giant lobsters but the main exhibit is a huge tank that even includes a tunnel.  Lots of big fish, rays, sharks, eels, turtle – it was pretty cool.  Just past the tunnel they have a small tank where they are breeding sharks so you can see baby sharks in all different stages of development.  Lastly there were some tropical tanks – we beat the school group in so it was almost like we had the place t ourselves.

The rest of the day was quiet, catching up on chores and wandering along the river.  Got our postcards mailed and attempted to do laundry.  However, when we arrived at the laundry place suggested by Rick Steves it was 8 Euro just to wash, let alone dry and get detergent!  what?  that is crazy rip-off.  Instead we went home and did old school style in the sink for our underwear.  Just when we thought we had graduated from hostel like life.

Since it was Friday night and our last night in SS, We embarked on a major tapas crawl of all the recommended places we had yet to hit.  We hit ten in total, usually just getting one food item each per bar, along with a drink.  By the end of the night we had eaten some good food and were pretty drunky

1st stop at Haizea (as seen on No Reservations) for Bunuelos de Bacalao and txakoli.

2nd stop is for tartaleta txangurro and vino tinto at Gandarias Jatetxea

3rd stop after watching friday night futbol is at Txepetxa for croquettes and anchovies with urchin roe along with crianza.

4th stop is Bar Bondi Berri for beef cheek stewed in red wine and iberian pork rib.

5th stop is Bar Izkina for vino tinto and frito de jamon y queso

6th stop is at Goiz-Argi for shrimp kebab and more txakoli

7th stop is Bar La Vina for Canutillo de queso y anchoa and vino tinto

8th stop is La Cuchara for Foie con compota de manzana with Crianza to drink.  ( I got a little cocky with this after liking the foie last night.  This piece was too big and rich for me, I could only eat half.)

9th stop is Casa Vergana for queso brie con mermelada de piquillo y tomata and sangria.

10th stop is Bar Aralar for jamon and blue cheese with sangria.

Arzak

Our big dinner out in Spain, Arzak, was recently ranked the #9 restaurant in the world and it was great.  Very similar to Alinea in size and style, though much more casual and flexible which was nice.

We made a relatively early reservation by Spanish standards and arrived for dinner at 8:30 PM.  The small lobby/bar area downstairs reminded us of someones living room which makes sense I guess since Arzak looks to have been built into a house on a more suburban looking street about 5 minutes drive from the older part of San Sebastian where we’re staying.

We started with the house specialty cocktail, a white wine with amaretto and lemon (not sure if it was Limoncello or just lemon juice) but in any case it was crisp and really delicious.  They also had these crazy stretched out forks and spoons that were cool.

We both went with the tasting menu especially since they were very flexible and accommodating of personal preference.   It was clear that they really care about the customer and want everyone to have a great experience.  The waiter offered us some good suggestions that in many cases meant we’d be having different dishes which gave us a chance to try a wide variety of flavors.  And they were:

Amuse bouche
There were five different amuses’ brought out to the table and my first observation was that they have really creative and different presentations again, much like we saw at Alinea.  The dishes were a fish pudding wrapped with what I think was coconut, fried and served on a stick, a red bean and apple soup that started out sour and finished with a sweet apple pie kick, a popcorn and mushroom tart, a crispy black pudding and another crispy fish thing.

Foie Gras
I was expecting a piece of seared Foie Gras here, but what we got was totally different.  The warm Foie Gras was paired with onion, tea and coffee and was served upside down in a free form ice cream cone made of corn that smelled and tasted like a Bugle.  What you did was slide a spoon under the cone to keep the contents in place and then pick it up and eat it with your hand like well, and ice cream cone.  Foie Gras has always scared me but this was actually pretty good.

It was at this point that chef/owner Elena Arzak came out to say hello and chatted for a few minutes.  Turns out that she knows the former owner of Harvest Vine in Seattle – small world!

Lobster with crispy potato/White asparagus
There were two choices for this course and we opted to get one of each in order to try both of them out.  I’d never had white asparagus before and really enjoyed it, the flavor isn’t as sharp as the green asparagus and it was very tender served with a variety of different flavored mayonnaise’s on the plate.  The plating was very creative and playful, bringing in lots of color.

The lobster was pan fried then served in a dehydrated crispy potato shell.  Along with the lobster was what looked like a tomato but turned out to be a little ball of tomato juice encased in gelatin and some saffron leaves.  There was also a sauce they explained came from a brazilian tree, but tasted similar to a miso.

Egg of the moment/Crab with seafood sausage
BK’s next dish was the house specialty “egg of the moment” which was a runny poached egg with a variety of crispy and chewy additions.  The egg was cooked perfectly and the crispy fried breadcrumbs with I think some dried mushroom and other flavors that he thought were just outstanding.

Since I’m not a big fan of eggs if they’re not scrambled they substituted a crab dish instead.  This also came with a seafood sausage and what looked like a wilted lettuce was actually rice paper tinted green and sprayed with some anise.  The dish was good and we both thought it worked pretty well.

Monkfish/Seabass
The next course was again a choice between several different fish so we each got a different fish to try both.  BK had the Monkfish which aside from being delicious came with a great plating that just looked like a beach right down to coral, starfish and sand with edible clamshells made from sugar and gelatin.  This dish also came with a small bit of white asparagus and a rice paper cupcake liner with pureed green bean “pellets” that were small gel capsules filled with green bean.

I had a Seabass which was poached in olive oil and came with some fake walnuts and garlic, rather gelatin molds that looked like garlic cloves and walnuts but tasted differently.

Lamb/Sole
For the meat course BK chose the lamb which was cooked a perfect medium rare and came with what appeared to be a marrow bone, but was actually a potato “bone” stuffed with mushroom “marrow”.  I have no idea how they made it, but it was tasty and the flavor there matched well with the sauce that came with the lamb.

Instead of meat I had a second fish dish which they said was sole but I think it was too fat and firm to be that.   Whatever it was, it was grilled and served with ginger oil, rich moist and delicious.

Desserts
For the first round of desserts we were served a strawberry soup with green tea ice cream and chocolate pearls.  This was decadent, and amazing with a room temperature strawberry soup paired with ice cream and warm chocolate the differences in texture and temperature just made this dish a winner and we practically licked the plate clean.

In addition was an assortment of chocolate ganaches with savory/spicy “chips” and a dark chocolate and rosemary ice cream.

The next course was probably the best bite of the night and involved a wax like  shell filled with lemon curd which they had poured some honey water over – we dubbed it Lemon Awesomeness.  This was just incredible and I’ll leave it at that.

We also had fake walnuts which were waxy shells in the shape of walnuts but filled with a liquid center that you first dipped in a red wine reduction before eating surrounded by a dark purple sugar.

The final dessert course was a selection of sweets that included a crispy pineapple gumdrop, white bean paste with almond, chocolate with passion fruit and pimento, chocolate caramels, a beet confection and chocolate with ground corn nuts.  This latter one was so good we asked for and were given several more pieces.  Sweet and salty goodness.

Special thanks to BK for letting me cut & paste liberally from his review

San Sebastian – Day 5

We woke up to no rain!  still cloudy and windy but we took advantage during the day and walked EVERYWHERE we could!  the sun even peeked out once in awhile.  First we stop by Bar Gorrito for breakfast of ham sandwich of course, but also one with a fluffy omelette on a tiny baguette – so good!  I think we’ll be back there again tomorrow.  We also went to a nearby bakery for a pain au chocolat.  The great thing about San Sebastian is all the spanish tapas PLUS french pastries due to their proximity to France!  It really is a good food haven.

With all teh calories being consumed our big day of walking was well timed.  We started by hiking up Mont Urgull, kind of like Discovery Park with old Military lookouts and forts and great sea views.  We even ran into another couple from Seattle (who had also packed for warmer weather!).

Back down at the bottom we strolled the promenade all the way along the bay to the other hill, Mont Igueldo.  Walking along the beach was great to see all the different people out – tourists, locals, runners, families.  Each of these hills sit on either side of the harbor entrance, and at th base of each is a big sculpture welcoming you in so it was fun to see both in one day and get their connection.

At Mont Igueldo we took the funicular up to the top which offered great views in every direction.  There was also a small amusement park up top, built around 1920 and I don’t think updated much since then.

Down below we walked back to our ‘hood, Parte Vieje (Old Town), in search of lunch.  Then, wanting to capitalize on the continued “nice” weather, we wandered across the bridge to walk through Gros, which has third beach and promenade, as well as two big crazy lego like buildings (Convention and Cultural Center).  Lots of surfers hang at this beach, and the neighborhood has lots of fancy buildings.

Things were beginning to close for siesta time, so we headed home to do the same and prepare for dinner tonight:  major tasting menu at Arzak, recently ranked the #9 restaurant in the world.  Separate blog on that to follow!

Pamplona & San Sebastian – Day 4

Still raining as we started our morning in Pamplona.  Our hotel offered free breakfast which was actually pretty good: super delicious hot chocolate in a big mug. yogurt, kiwi, baguette and nutella.  mmm

Pamplona is of course best known for the annual “Running of the Bulls.”  The festival doesn’t happen until July, but we did our own pedestrian version through the narrow old streets, ending at the bull ring. From there we wandered the streets a bit more before hitting the road to San Sebastian.

It was beautiful, wet, rainy, foggy, hilly, green journey through the mountains over to the beach at San Sebastian, on the north coast of Spain.  We did three crazy touristy loops of the city trying to navigate into what we hoped was the best parking option for our hotel and it turned out we nailed it!  Came up the stairs from the garage right to our front door.  The Pension is amazingly well located, central to both the old town and city center.  We had a short siesta time before wandering in search of H&M – given the wintery weather binge, I needed an extra layer to layer, especially tomorrow night for my nice dress which is pretty summery (it will now be a shirt dress over my new H&M leggings – see how trendy I am?).

Since we missed lunch we next embarked on Hora Feliz and dinner, wandering from bar to bar in the old town.  San Sebastian has the highest concentration of Michelin rated chefs so you really can’t go wrong almost anywhere you go.  We hit three bars for a sampling of different bites at each, along with vino tinto or sangria.  My favorite of the night was a baguette with caramelized onion, brie and sundered tomato.  We also strolled through the market and ended with a chocolate caramel cake at the corner patisserie.

As we walked home it was amazingly dry and we even saw a glint of blue sky and sunshine as it set.  Fingers crossed for a dry day tomorrow!