Impressions

The 10th of March was again one of the most beautiful days we had in Spain – after The Pyrenees. The very morning looked foggy, but then it cleared up and I was already thinking of staying one more night in that wonderful hotel with lots of X-es in its name with the sea waves beating under our window:

But then my willingness to see the mountains one more time conquered this wish to stay and so we just walked one more time in those 4 medieval streets of Getaria:

The church is very strange there-  it is built over a street! So the altar part of the church is higher and all the floors are lifted towards the altar, so tat if you drop a ball by the altar, it wall roll down towards the entrance, or if you go for a communion – you would feel like climbing a mountain, or if you sit in a chair – you feel like you are in there to have a nap:

Spaniards like having coffins in their churches, some of them with a very realistic body, so that I was happy I visited them only now, when I am “over the hill” and not so sensitive, fo rin my childhood – i couldn’t bear such a view:

There is  a fortress by the road, which you can climb up and see the town from high up:

Our hotel was that last red building.  We also walked down to the fishing port with the warehouses for fish:

This is a town you can fall in love with and want to come again and again…but we would rather not, too far away…So we left driving up North on the same road by the sea till we saw Zumaia:

We stopped by the entrance to the city to see the House-museum of a Basque prominent painter Ignacio Zuloaga, but it was closed, so just some pics from outside of his house:

Speaking about Basques – they have their own language Euskera and their own different names of cities and places. But even their names in Spanish sound and look different – the letter combinations like “itz” or “oa” as well as the last letters “X, Y, Z of the alphabet are met in their words quite often. And also speaking about Basques  – their waiters seemed to us rather unpleasant. This was area in our trip were they openly showed how they hate taht we don’t speak Spanish and how they “don’t care”  -they would never look directly to your face. just somewhere through your head to the spaces behind…and never cared whether we stayed or left for the service for unbearably slow…Women waiters – a completely different story. They were nice as everywhere in Spain.  Draw your own conclusions, I can’t give a sexist advice .

Here are some pictures from Deba & Ondarroa – another coastal towns:

The maps usually don’t show a road from Ondarroa to Lekeitio. but there is one, on the sea shore. a very narrow one. it was worth driving it for the views and the first sight of Lekeitio from the high coast cliff that the road came from:

We found a space to park in the center on the street and walked to the port area to search for some “menu dia”. That took us a while. Lots of places, all crowded and very unfriendly. After seeing the boats and the Cathedral:

We found a nice restaurant further from the sea and closer to where we parked:

A magnolia tree was blooming if front of it:

After leaving Lekeitio we already turned inland and drove for a long time, through the gray granite mountains. pretty high rocks over high passes till we reached Vitoria – Gazteiz – the Basque capital. Walked there a little, but not too much, same narrow medieval streets, same churches…

Except that their streets go parallel in co-centric ovals. But…we couldn’t  find their central square. And afterwards we had a big problem driving out of the city – the road out was kind of hidden…as it often happened to us over there …So we drove till we reached Alfaro, already in the dark where there was a suitable hotel and pretty close to another place of interest for tomorrow  -Corella.

We found a pretty good guest house on the road to Pamplona from the south. The evening was very rainy so we just rested and saved energy for tomorrows adventures. So on March 9th we visited Pamplona – which I knew about as a city of San Fermin festival in July and a bull race they have in the middle of the old town every day during that festival. I would never go there in July . But now in March it was interesting to see one more Spanish capital with lots of history. They have good maps, but it is still very hard to figure out the best way in and out of the city. We parked in an underground parking in the center, and walked to the very center. Some nice houses onthe way:

Some squares with their hero figures:

But I was mostly impressed by Plaza del Castillo:

Then we went along Estafeta – the street where bulls run during St. Fermin festival:

They even run by the City Hall which is considered one of the most beautiful buildings in Pamplona:

And then we visited a museum, right on top of the corral where they keep the bulls before they let them loose:

The museum had lots of paintings, sculptures and the church on the right:

Here is one of the ancient mosaics exposed there:

And that is all from Pamplona. there are lots of other churches and buildings  worth visiting, but we started feeling already too overchurched. Plus, everything in Pamplona is not for a fee  – the parking, the churches. etc. Unlike other towns we visited. And when you have seen so much – so why bother. They also have a big 5 angled Ciudadela – the Citadel – but the books wrote that the gardens on it are especially beautiful when flowers are in bloom. This time it was too early in spring. So we went back to our car and had a rather hard time finding our way out of the city onto a highway towards the Basque country, towards the  Atlantic.

The green slopes and white houses by the highway looked very cozy:

The first stop on the Atlantic shore, more precisely – on the Golf of Biscay, was Hondarribia, pretty close to San Sebastian:

There was no problem to park by its well lifter center, as always, but we had to climb up, again…

Till we reached a square, a fortress with parador in it:

and some beautiful viewpoints:

From there we tried to get to San Sebastian, we got there, drove through the center hectically looking for a place to park – not on the streets, which were over packed with cars and people – but some parking garage or something like that.We couldn’t…the whole city left me an impression of a grandeur and somehow reminded Moscow or St. Petersburg in Russia, too big to enjoy, too busy. With a bridge of that Russian type, decorated with sculptures.  I didn’t even manage to take a picture-  we couldn’t stop even for a moment…So what was left for us – to drive away and seek some beautiful views elswhere on the coast, up a little North:

Here is a view from far away towards San Sebastian. The coastal road is good, it was very pleasant to drive there and feel the sea so close. We passed a couple of towns on the way until we came to Getaria, there  we found where to park and went for a walk towards the old town – and guess what – there was a hotel right on the corner, facing the sea, and the price wasn’t killing and everything was so right, the name of it Itxas Gain:

So we got a room there:

brought our stuff and had a nice walk in the 3 medieval parallel streets of Getaria:

It was very strange with their geology – our room in the hotel was on the 2nd floor, not high from that street level. But very high from the other street level and from the sea level on th eother side of it:

This is the view we could see not directly from the room – because there was an inner garden going form our room to the edge of the cliff where the owners arranged a safe observation deck with tables, chairs, pants, palms and even a little lawn to lay in the sun:

This path leads to the observation deck from our room…It was wonderful. I can’t say more…

As you can see I am writing in the past tense.  About the travels in Spain 2 months ago…Shame on me, but I couldn’t find time or energy to make it into the web faster. The spring came here to Southern Utah in whole speed, it is warm and nice now, therefore lots of work in the gardens. The blooms are also fantastic, so we spent some time hiking and observing desert flowers and blooming cacti. Not speaking that all the mountains around and vistas are wonderful.

But I have to come back to March 8th and describe our day traveling in Navarre. First stop – Javier, named under a saint, a quite an interesting saint.  Saint Francis Javier, patron of Navarre was born in 1506 in the castle. The younger son of a well-off family, he went to study at the University of the Sorbonne in Paris and there he met Ignatius Loyola and his life was radically turned around.  In 1541, moved by his faith, he started an eleven year journey which took him to India and the Far East.  Here are the scenes from his life made into 3D and exposed in the castle of Javier:

So he visited India (as if Indians do not have enough of their own gods…) and then Indonesia, Japan and ended up in China where he was painted in an eastern  manner. He is laid to rest in Goa, India.

What I liked about the museum – and I noticed it in most old restored buildings and castles – they combine the new materials, interiors with their old styles:

So I started to show the Xavier castle from the inside -w hat an approach .  Here how it looks form the outside:

As every decent castle it has a church attached to its side:

The church has a nice entrance:

and luckily there was a mass that I could get a feel of  -a nice mass, even without understanding Spanish I could understand what was going on:

And then  I looked towards the monastery from the top of the castle:

and we left for another town with an interesting name: Sos del Rey  Catolicos:

Instead of parking our car there on the left by the hill town, we decided to be lazy to climb it, all their old towns are to be climbed up, so we kind of got tired , and so we drove up in those narrow one way streets, we were crazy:

Of course we got stuck, got freaked out…had a very hard time even turning around, let alone finding our way back on the right -way streets. If not for that tractor guy, the only living being  on that side of the town – I was close to tears …But he assured us we will find the way out of this labyrinth. So we drove out and  around and parked on the other side of the hill – it seemed to have more life there. Then climbed up to the very top:

Looked around:

Walked around the tower erected on the highest point of Sos del Reyt Catolico:

and visited their church a little lower:

The only man in the church directed me to the crypt, so I went…down a super narrow winding and low staircase just to see this:

It was a scary feeling down there in the crypt – I was thinking – if lots of people gathered there and there was a fire – that is it, a communal tomb…With the super narrow staircase -how many of them could escape? Or – if it is a crypt-  naturally you think someone worthwhile is buried there. But how could they get a coffin into it? Unless they buried before building the church. It is so not good not to speak the language of the country you travel…

Next stop – Sanguesa. Very beautiful roofs edges – with lots of sculptures under them, but who has the strength in their necks to look so way up and who has such sharp eyes to see what are those sculptures…

The entrance to their church had very unusual non symmetrical sculptured creatures that you could see with a regular  eyesight:

Sanguesa was peculiar in the sense that unlike in any other town we couldn’t find a restaurant, especially with “menu dia”. So we drove to our other destination  -Ujue, which is in the middle on nowhere, just low mountains, almost like desert…No towns around, except San Martin de Unx – thanks God for that – at least we found an add  -”Menu Dia” – 10 euros! it was in a private house, not in some restaurant. The house was several miles from the town but still in the proximity and a tall English lady with a Spanish husband lives here. She likes catering. so she arranged part of their house to look more like a restaurant and she holds parties there. During lunch – Menu Dia! it was especially nice to visit that establishment, for we were the only customers, it was peculiar what would they feed us with, and at last – we could talk! and get to know something about life in Spain. We were so excited, that didn’t take the picture of her restaurant neither of her…Just the flan dessert – it is popular in Spain:

As planned we drove towards Ujue on that desolate road. but didn’t even enter the town. for it seemed we won’t find anything different that in other towns we already visited, just the general view from far away:

And the last town for that gloomy not a good weather for pictures day was Olite.  All the books mention it having a fairy tale castle:

A Parador is established in that castle – it is a government owned high end hotel. At some point Spanish government took over some outstanding castles, restored them to modernity inside and made them into hotels. Guests can experience a real medieval life style, I guess, while staying there, maybe they can even meet some ghosts. But all joking aside – they have the best restaurants in those Paradors and the prices for the rooms are reasonable for Euro zone citizens.

The church has an interesting cloister not inside, but in front of it.

Leaving Olite and heading towards Pamplona for the next day’s visit:

March 7th was the most beautiful day of our travels. The weather was perfect. Sunny and crispy as it can be only in the mountains. We got breakfast in our Hostal by River Ara in Fiscal -with the view of the river, for the hostel is built right on the edge of the river. Kind of scary, because  that edge was very high. Here is the view:

So then we started our driving-through-the-mountains day stopping at almost every little town we found on our way. The first town – Sarvise:

Oto in the distance:

Broto  -seemed like old was connected with new to get a mountain resort:

There was even a waterfall in town with twisting rocks on its side:

Then we turned from the main road towards Balneario di Panticosa  -a ski resort, and saw this:

It seemed like a fairy tale, this little town of Torla, where we had an extended walk. it also seems so low under the mountains. But actually you have to climb to get into it from the parking. As every town here in Pyrenees it is on a hill or a higher edge between the very high mountains. I can’t imagine a more picture perfect town…Even on this very bright sunny day when the pictures also don’t come out as good, almost the same as on rainy days:

Everything looks pretty grey, I agree, because of the grey stones they used for buildings and the lack of flowers – too early in spring. So at least those jackets were making the walls of a shop brighter.

This is already another town on the way where we had our lunch – Menu Dia.

Here we proceed on the road to Balneario di Panticosta, by a reservoir – what a beautiful name!

This one on top – is looking back from where we came.

Balneario is “downstairs”, ski elevators were everywhere seen on the right – but there was nothing to do for us and we didn’t even land there, just looking from the top road was enough.

Then we drove through Jaca, didn’t stop there either, and again up to some lower mountains towards Monasterio De San Juan De La Pena, it is mentioned in all tourist books and is on a back road but on one of the main pilgrimages routes:

Here is what opened to our eyes once we drove up in a forest, as it opens to pilgrims eyes:

Actually this is a new monastery. But is is built in a kind of a Gothic style. As we didn’t get into any excursions…our knowledge about places was not as deep. I couldn’t get enough of that view that pilgrims first see as they get out of the forest:

The lawn was full of very tiny daffodils and the forest – some blue spring flowers that bloom in Lithuania and it was very sentimental to see them. We used to go to the forests by our city on Sundays to pick some of those spring prophets. I am sorry. I don’t know their English name. And their color didn’t come right in pictures, so no flowers . Instead – the lower monastery, which was arranged under a sandstone  rock, very similar to Utah rocks:

Then again – lots of driving, with medieval towns here and there:

Till we reached another monastery- de Leyre:

Also on a hill, also to the side of a main road, also with views:

They had a hotel there, but it was still closed and also – when we looked at its prices – they were not for dollar zone pockets. We also noticed that there is a  spring of Virgin Mary, where we filled our bottles with very tasty and maybe even sacred water:

The whole little garden where the spring was was charming!  I wish we had to eat some sandwiches here. but our schedule was different, the sun was setting and we had to find a place to sleep which was the hardest task on our whole trip (lots of road construction on the way, so the workers occupied all the scarce hotels, motels).

(more in next blog)

On March 6th we were driving through Aragon. At first we drove down from Berga on C16, then turned left towards Lleida, but didn’t stop anywhere till we reached Calaf:

The reason we stopped there – we needed gasoline. So we felt our duty to park the car and go towards the main cathedral, but saw the same type of a church as everywhere in those parts of Spain, the same squares. Good. So we got our gas, and to tell the truth – a very peculiar truth – this gas was the cheapest we ever came upon in Spain anywhere in our future drivings. Everywhere else the price was the same- whether you pump it in the center of a city or in the suburbs. There is no way of being smart and saving on gas while finding better places where to fill up. that was our experience, except for Calaf . That already tell that Calaf is not a tourist destination nor it is a flourishing industrial city.

Driving around Lleida, on the ring highway we missed Rt. 240 towards Monzon and found ourselves by Rio Cinca. Whatever, we drove up by that river and the creatures we saw on a small town’s Osso de Cinca church tower made us stop:

Isn’t strange – storks were nesting on each corner of the tower…

Not only nesting, but living their social life to their fullest with those clacking sounds and lots of trash under the tower .  And then we reached Monzon and its towering castle on the hill:

We found a very narrow road going up to the castle, but by that time we already felt “castled out”, plus the hazard of driving that one way “hardly to pass road without breaking you car’s mirror or a side door”, so we just looked around in the main square at the bottom of the castle hill and drove out of town.

Next city – Barbastro. They were doing lots of road renovations in the very downtown of it, so we didn’t spend much time there, either, just a pic of their Cathedral:

A stork on top of it:

and a sculpture about their catholic past:

A note: there are olive trees in the background. you can see them in many place sin cities as decoration trees as well as olive groves as plantations for producing olives. Barbastro is described in tourist books as a city of beautiful architecture. We didn’t  spend enough time to see something very amazing or different than other cities we have already seen. From Barbastro we kept driving up by river Cinca, saw a couple of dams and lakes on the way  – they looked magnificent in between mountains which started to appear and grow bigger and bigger:

There were little old towns, I mean very very old towns on the shores of those lakes – evidently at some point they were built to stand high up on a hill and when people lifted the river water – they found themselves almost on the water, but still picture perfect.

Some of them still stayed high up. New architectural details started to show up – peculiar chimneys:

And soon enough we reached Ainsa  – an old fortress town. This time again we didn’t look for a way to drive up, but parked the car at the bottom, therefore letting ourselves get some exercise and climb a not very small hill with the medieval town glued to its top and sides:

Of course, it was a pleasure to walk around in the narrow stone streets where no cars were allowed, alas…

and take pictures of the confluence of two rivers at the bottom of the city hill:

There is a rather big central square close by the fortress of the town, full of restaurants and hotels:

and the fortress walls:

A very impressive town that Ainsa was…It was getting dark, the sun set and we still had to drive by the river Ara towards Hostal Rio Ara. On the way there was this abandoned town Janovas – which we noticed only because a lady at the informattion center in the castle in Ainsa told us to pay attention to it – people were replaced to other areas to live in order to make a dam on river Ara and flood the valley. But then the authorities changed their minds and therefore – the abandoned village…

I have to say that the road by this river was very narrow and at times we had to stop and let another car through.  Good the season has not started yet. So there we very few other cars. I thought it would be nice to walk in the ruins of the village Janovas, but we had no time. it was getting late. More about Hostal Rio Ara and the little towns by it  – in the next Blog.