Basque Country Buffet

Note:
We had a computer crash while travelling - so we will get ourselves caught up!  Currently, we finished 2 years of travelling and have come back to San Diego, California to spend the holidays with family and friends and make plans for 2016!

RICH:
Happy-Hour-Heaven!  Never in my life have I witnessed such a display of food.  The variety and quality of small appetizers called Pintxos (pronouonced pinchos) overwhelm you. Door after door of welcoming culinary buffets.  25-30 platters of fish, pimentos, jamon, chorizo, bruchettas, vegetables, prepared in many different ways, with more arriving from the kitchen.  Each kitchen daring the other restaurants to match their gastronomic efforts.  Swine and Dine shangri la.  Ahhhh.

In search of the next Pinxto Bar - so many to choose from, so little time!

WANDA:

Of course Richard couldn't wait to share the "Swine and Dine" experiences  San Sebastian is known for.  In fact, the city holds the 2nd highest Michelin Stars per capita in the world.  On our budget, we went to the popular Pinxto Bars and ate to our tummies content...

- Rich, "I'll take one of each"  - Bartender, "Help yourself to as much as you want.  When you are done, we count the toothpicks and you are charged 2 Euros per toothpick."  

It was an expensive night....

Before San Sebastian though, I don't want to forget the few days we spent in Bilbao - the largest city in the Basque Country (and at one time known for the commerce of iron ore and  renowned for their ironwork of swords in the 16th century called "Bilboes")

We walked the city along the estuary and crossed back and forth over the 17 bridges Bilbao is known for....

The colorful La Salve Bridge

We walked through the streets of the Old Town....

...and experienced the gothic St. James Cathedral...

..... to the modern Guggenheim museum...

The amazing Guggenheim Museum -a must see if you make it to Bilbao!

Now back to San Sebastian....

Not only is San Sebastian known for good eating it is known as the place to vacation for the people of Spain.  Beautiful playas or beaches, 

Thomas and Amaya are a young Basque couple that invite strangers into their home to share a Basque meal....

...as long as you help of course!  Checkout how we cut the potatoes.  Insert a knife partway through the potato, then break off a piece of the potato in small chunks.  The broken edge of the potato allows the starch to be released into the soup efficiently. 

The menu was Snapper Basque Style and a Sofrito Soup with Chorizo.  Basque cooking is rustic without the use of spices.  The key ingredients are sweet paprika and Pimiento sauce.

Olive Oil, Onion, Chorizo Sausage, Potatoes, Sweet Paprika, Salt, and Water.  These few ingredients make for a very tasty soup or stew.

Simple Simple Simple - Fish laid over sliced potatoes fried in olive oil - thrown in the oven for 20 minutes and...

.... the chopped garlic fried in olive oil tops the fish!

Wow!  The smells coming from these 2 dishes make for a couple of happy people!!

The strangers - Jill, Barbara, Steph, Lauren, Rich, and myself became friends in the home of Thomas and Amaya over a wonderful Basque dinner and Spanish wine!  TOPA!!

We loved San Sebastian, but we were excited to get down to Madrid and meet up with Renata.........    So off we go!

ASTURIAS SPAIN: Woody Allen, Faba Beans, and Sidra

We are still a little behind in our posts......

RICH:

Our journey across northern Spain brought us to the region of Asturias.  This place may be the cleanest city in Europe.  That's right, cleaner than cities in Switzerland, Germany etc.  

Woody Allen, noted germaphobe,  was quoted about Oviedo, (2nd largest city in the Asturian region, and the location for many scenes in Allen's film, Vicki Christina Barcelona),  "Oviedo is Delicious, Exotic, Beautiful, Clean, Pleasant, Peaceful, and Kind to Pedestrians.  It's as if it doesn't belong to this world, as if it could not possibly exist...Oviedo is like a Fairy Tale."  

Oviedo is also one of the friendliest cities we have ever visited.  When you add incredible regional food, Asturias is a treasure you need to visit.

Walking the streets of Oviedo with Woody

WANDA:

We are in the Region of Asturias.  Asturias can be described as the sea on one side and the Picos de Europa mountain range on the other side - Like Galicia, isolated and different from the rest of Spain.   We visited 3 cities in the region - Lastres,  Gijon, and it's capital city Oviedo.  We spent most of our time in Oviedo, as Rich said, because it is such an impressive city.   Asturias was populated by the Celtic peoples known as the Astures during the Bronze Age - and of course, like everywhere else in Europe, the Romans left their important mark as well as the Visigoths.  Unlike the rest of Spain, the Moors never found their way over the mountainous region...

Let's start with the traditional food of Asturia:
The cuisine of Asturias is based on Fabada, Cheese, Cider, and of course fish and shellfish.  The food is rustic and natural with little or no spices.

Fabada Asturiana or just Fabada- is a heavy rich bean stew, made with white/faba beans with pork or bacon, chorizo, and morcilla - black sausages...hmmmm Happy Boy!

...the local dish is so loved - stores are full of take-home packets.  We went to a couple of restaurants to taste the different variations - all were excellent and left us tooting for more!

If anyone loves cheese and has been to all the great destinations for the best cheese in the world, then Asturias must be on this list.  It is known as the "Land of Cheeses" - they are well known for their world famous blue cheese called Cabrales...what pairs best with their cheeses is their traditional drink....

 Sidra at La Finca Sidreria....

.....The Asturias traditional drink is Sidra -   Asturias grows more than 200 kinds of apples - why eat them when you can blend them into a wonderful (they say "low alcohol") hard cider!  The label Sidra de Asturias is the protected Denomination of Orgin (DOP)...

The art of pouring Sidra is known as "Escanicar" - as you can see in the photo above, you must pour the cider from above one's head - what this does, kind of like decanting wine, unleashes aromas and effervescence...

Since we have never been to Asturias, we did not know the proper way to drink Sidra - and this waiter had to school us... we noticed he would only pour us a little in our glass at a time, so we sipped a little at a time - he finally had to tell us "Each time I only pour you a little you are to drink it all at once, otherwise you lose the effervescence, if there is any left in the bottom of the glass toss it out!"  oops!  OK....

Chorizo and blood sausage crumbled and spread on tortillas works well with Sidra!

The next day, we wanted more Sidra - just because practice makes perfect!......

We chose El Burladero restaurant because we liked the vibe!

Rich trying his hand at the proper way to pour Sidra and drink it - We learn fast!.....

We asked our wonderful waiter at this restaurant to bring us out what he would eat with the Sidra.  He was so happy, he rushed off to tell the chef to make us an XXL Asturian Cachopo - another traditional dish of Asturia -   Lucky us!  Basically, it is Iberico ham and the famous Asturias cheese between 2 beef filets - coated in bread crumbs and fried...Delicioso!...  
He told us there are Cachopo competitions  in the city for the best and biggest Cachopo...

We really needed to walk off all the food we have been eating... it's so easy in Oviedo - it is such a beautiful and elegant city...... above is the Catedral de Oviedo (A UNESCO World Heritage Site) - a Gothic Cathedral built in the 14th century.  It is a stop for Pilgrims on their way to Santiago de Compostela...

We walked and walked and walked and couldn't help but notice how beautifully clean this city was - no dog poop, no cigarette butts, no trash.  When one of the locals asked us if we were enjoying our visit here - we were told the city has won numerous awards for "The Cleanest City in Spain".  Trash is picked up every day and there is always someone sweeping and cleaning the streets.   Yes, they are all very proud of their city and it shows....

.... The city seems to pride itself on culture and art as well, including a wonderful Art Museum with a large collection of El Greco.  Besides the wonderful architecture of the buildings,  there are so many sculptures and statues found throughout the city center...

A city park was built around the remains of ancient Roman Walls ...

At the top of the hill outside of Oveidos are a few churches that seem to be in every artist's gallery in the city , especially the Santa Maria del Naranco (which is a UNESCO world Heritage Site) - it was originally built as a palace for Asturian Kings in the 9th century and then converted into a church in the 13th century...

20 kilometers away is Gijon another city in Asturias ....

"Arbol de la Sidra" or Tree of Sidra

 This monument is created with 3,000 recycled bottles of Sidra - looks like a party town to me...

Gijon is the largest city in Asturias located on the Bay of Biscay....the coastline is made up of sandy beaches and rugged cliffs...

Elogio del Horizonte or The Eulogy of the Horizon stands on the edge of a cliff overlooking the Bay of Biscay...

Lastres is the last town we stopped at in Asturias.  We stayed long enough to enjoy the  

beautiful views, beaches, and mountains that Asturias is well known for...

....time to head east to the Regions of Cantabria and Basque country....

Galicia Spain, Here's Looking at you Pilgrim

RICH:  
We have left Portugal and re-entered Spain.  The Northern Spain region is unlike the rest of Spain with the wild Atlantic, green forests, enormous rainfall, and history dating back to the Celts, Romans, and Visigoths - our spirits are high.  

Speaking of spirits, nothing is more iconic of Northern Spain, and particularly the Galicia region, than the Pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela.  The walk to visit the remains of St. James has been made by millions of people since the Middle Ages.   Many come to find inner peace, others, after walking 600+ kilometers from places as far away as France and all parts of Spain, come needing to be healed.  We made our pilgrimage by EuropeCar.   The availability of food, drink and showers at such extreme distances was better left to people with two good knees.

Thankfully, Northern Spain is not hot enough for Brits, Irish, Germans, and Scandinavians. The result is an unspoiled, beautiful part of the world, bereft of ugly high rises and mushy peas.  You will love it. 

...You will find markers and sign posts guiding the Pilgrims along the Spiritual Trail...  

View from the roof top of The Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela

Tired Pilgrims at the end of their walk, don't know where many started...

s

...but they all end here at The Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela.  Some will continue to walk to Finisterre (the end of the world in Roman times) where there is a final ritual or tradition of burning your clothes at the end the Pilgrim's journey...

Being A Pilgrim is so much easier to read...

WANDA:
We all know what kind of pilgrimage you are really interested in Rich -  "The Food Lover's Pilgrimage".... hmmm - I guess that's what we have already been doing... oh well, carry on...

I would like to sincerely say that we have friends that have just completed the walk - 

Victoria (twice) and Julia Cosgrove !!  

2 BadAss Women walking the Camino - You are both our heroes!  

(I just stole this picture from Victoria's facebook page)

...Back to the rest of Galicia:  We actually started in Vigo, then went to Santiago Compostella, A Coruna, and ended in Cathedral Beach... The people here are fascinating - you expect them to speak Spanish, and they do, but they prefer their native language which is Galician or Gallego.  They are very proud of their heritage and consider themselves Celts.  In fact, we have seen many Buskers playing Bagpipe music and wearing Celtic garb - very different from the rest of Spain.

Galicia's fishing fleet is the largest in Spain... so you can expect the traditional foods are 
  seafood of all kinds - Octopus or "Pulpa" and Squid seem to be a recurring theme on the coast of Spain.... 

In Vigo - an important Port city in Galicia, there is a magnificent bronze sculpture of Jules Verne sitting on a giant squid (The Bay of Vigo was a chapter in his famous book 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea) .... 

...Looking as bronzed as the sculpture above, we happened to be in Vigo on an important day - My Birthday! - though, I prefer eating a giant plate of squid to sitting on one...Saude!

......"Then Nemo says, Oh, and by the way, it just so happens we're in Vigo Bay now - the place where all of this Spanish treasure went down....."  

Next stop is A Coruna - When one first drives into town, you notice all the white wooden windows... which are the traditional windows of Galicia...

.... even more noticeable is the beautiful coastline -  beaches and cliffs surround the city 
(I know this is not the greatest picture)...

.....it is breathtaking.... there are trails and promenades that encircle the city - everyone looks healthy here, because it seems they are all walking or running and enjoying the outdoors - we got our 10,000 + steps in every day here!....

This captivating Cephalopod created of ceramic and concrete overlooks one of the many promenades...

....and this captivating "home fermoso"  looks to finish his 8th pulpa tentacle...

We fell in love with A Coruna - yes, the city itself - but even more,  the story of Maria Pita - a Galician heroine who fought against the English in  1589 - the dead soldier probably represents Sir Francis Drake.... She is definitely another BadAss Woman of Herstory!

The Tower of Hercules (another UNESCO World Heritage Site)  is an ancient Roman lighthouse built in the 1st century at the entrance of A Coruna harbor... I think I see Hercules himself at the bottom of the picture...

Leaving A Coruna, on a very windy day.....

...and heading to Cathedral Beach....watch your step!!  Galicia has over 1,000 miles of coastline with bays, inlets, beaches, and rocky cliffs - and they aren't crowded!

Rich stepping into the cathedral....

Walking through the arches....

....exploring the dark caves...

....climbing the rocks....you just don't want to leave this picturesque place!

You can understand why Galicia has declared this area as a Natural Monument. 

You can only walk the beach and appreciate the natural beauty of the arches and caves during low tide....
Rich waving!!   Happy Birthday Rich!!!

The tide is starting to come in....Rich better hurry - he's the last one leaving the beach... in trouble again, we were told high tide happens quickly...

Whoah! - that was quick, it's high tide....Where is Rich???....

STAY TUNED.....