Bennies in Basque!

Thursday 18th Sept
 
We arrived late into Bilbao airport after a quick Easyjet flight from Stansted. We picked up our rental car (another Fiat Panda!) and drove 20 mins from the airport to find our cottage. The cottage was a awesome little wooden cabin on the cliffs overlooking a beach. Aritz, the guy whose family owns the place was really nice and showed us must see places on the map. We showered and then hit the sack to recharge our batteries for the week ahead.

Friday 19th Sept
 
We had a great night's sleep even with roosters crowing and donkeys hee-hawing next door! We got up about 10am and then about 30 mins later, we had some breakfast delivered to our front gate - Spanish omelette, melon and ham and muffins- amazing, all courtesy of Aritz's mum who we found out was a chef in a local tapas restaurant.

We went for a two minute wander down to our local beach. The cliffs had stunning views of the Atlantic Ocean and it was so nice to be by the sea again. We walked down to the beach and saw it was completely full of completely nude people... somehow we had booked a cabin above a nudist beach - opps!
 
By now it was time to do some expoloring of the Basque Country. So we hopped in the car and aimed for San Juan de Gaztelugatxe which was built by knights Templar in the 10th century; it had awesome views of the Bay of Biscay. We walked the whole thing in our jandals and got some funny looks as it was a bit of a hike but it was sweet for a couple of kiwis. We then wandered up it the car in the 30 degree heat and headed to Bakio for a picnic lunch on the sandy beach. We tested the water and it was a bit chilly! Dam Atlantic Ocean.
 

After a pleasant day out we took a scenic route home via Armintza and Plentzia and found a supermarket for dinner. Once home we sunbathed a bit more and relaxed over a cold beer before Lou cooked up dinner and we ate outside in the setting sun. By the time we finished dinner it was almost sunset so we walked up one of the cliffs behind our cottage to watch the sun set and it was amazing... So peaceful. We finished the night with bollo de mantequilla (basically a cream bun again courtesy of Aritz's mum).

Highlight: We really got lucky with our cottage, and the location, all total peaceful and chilled out.
Lowlight: Hamish bet Lou she could lie in a hammock having never seen his wife in one. Turns out this was for good reason! Lou found it challenging to get in and out of the hammock and as Hamish predicted, Lou flipped over and fell out to Hamish's ammusement. Lou did bruise her shoulder and elbow so he couldn't laugh too hard. 
Interesting fact: The hermitage is accessed by a narrow path, crossing the solid stone bridge, and going up 237 steps (other sources cite the number as 229 or 231). According to legend, after the slightly strenuous climb to the top of the crag one should ring the bell three times and make a wish.

Saturday 20th Sept

After a good night's rest we got up and decided to walk to the neighbouring beach Arriatera via the cliff top path offering spectacular views of the Atlantic Ocean and beautiful sunrise.

The walk itself was very pleasant and helped burn off some of the calories from the day before. We then got ready to head to Bilbao for the day after a breakfast of left overs only for our host to deliver another plastic bag fill of amazing treats our fridge was looking rather full by now!!

We drove into the city centre of Bilbao and parked our sweet ride the black Fiat Panda! We then did a self-guided tour of Bilbao using our handy tourist map. We walked to plaza Moyua before making our way to park Casilda Iturrizar where we stumbled across a kids fair. We walked through the park and onto the Sacred Heart monument (just a big statue of the man himself).

We then made our way across to the main river through Bilbao - Ria de Bilbao. We strolled along the river bank soaking up the beautiful scenery. The day was warming up and it was about 30 degrees - very pleasant. Our riverside stroll took us to the Guggenheim museum which is an impressive modern building that looks like massive waves of stainless steel. We decided there was too much to see and such a nice day so we skipped the museum and only took the standard tourist shot outside with the massive dog aka El Puppy!
 

Right beside the museum we found the Red Bull cliff diving competition which we watched for a bit, it was packed though and no one cranked the millennium pin to Hamish's disappointment. We found our way across one of the many bridges and up to a Funicular de Artxanda which takes you up to one of the highest hills looming down on Bilbao. It only took a few minutes and we had a well-earned rest at the top soaking in the views.
 

Next stop was old town. Unfortunately between the funicular ride down and walk to the old town it had clouded over. The first crack of thunder and bolt of lightning quickly followed and we forced to take shelter while it poured down tropical style for a good 20 mins. We eventually risked it and ran to the big market - la Ribera but it was shut!!! - Gutted:(
We then crossed the river back to new town and by this stage we were hungry, like critically hungry...Lou had found this place called Cafe Iruna which served pintxos all day. It had a great atmosphere and luckily the bar tender spoke some English! We had some nice red wine and about 8 pintxos... All different flavours and all delicious. Lou even ordered some of the local cider which they traditionally pour from 2 feet above the glass... Harder than it looks! The cider was not sweet like we are used to so we will probably give that a miss in the future.
 

We continued in the pintxos crawl to a bar that was covered in bull fighting memorabilia and we ate a bit more before calling it a day.
 

We had a great day in Bilbao but were getting tired so we found our way back to our park to drive home. The streets were crawling with Athletico supporters, from guys to granny's and babies....everyone supported the local team! We stopped off to pick up a few more beers and finished the afternoon on the sun lounger before watching the sun go down again from our little spot and having more tapas for tea....so Spanish...so good!

Highlight: Bilbao was pleasantly a really nice city, and the weather and food was superb Lowlight: The afternoon rain storm and leaving umbrellas in the car.....fail.
Interesting fact: The Guggenheim museum is one of the most admired works of contemporary architecture, the building has been hailed as a "signal moment in the architectural culture", because it represents "one of those rare moments when critics, academics, and the general public were all completely united about something." It does look pretty cool.

Sunday 21st Sept

Today we decided to hit up San Sebastián, about an hour's drive north of our little cottage. We were getting into a routine by now. We got up around 9am and did our beach walk again but this time in the other direction. We had another breakfast of treats (although Lou was sick of the cream buns by now).
We packed up the car with our supplies for the day and followed the toll road for an hour or so. We arrived in San Sebastian and it was stunning, helped by the fact that it was a gloriously sunny day and about 30 degrees. The main beach in the city was packed with all shapes and sizes, some wearing clothes some not! 

Eager to go exploring, we parked up in an underground park right by the beach and started our exploring with a walk up Monte Urgell which is on the eastern side if the beach. We decided on the harder but quicker straight uphill climb in the heat but the views from the top were worth it. There was a big statue of God at the top overlooking the city. On the way down we went out to the point where the bay opened up into the ocean, it was very much like Wellington but a lot warmer.
 

We then wandered in to the old town for some food and respite from the heat. The old town was a maze of cobbled streets with loads of pintxos bars; we found a wee one by the main church and sampled more delicious treats along with sangria! We hit another pintxos bar and with full bellies headed back to the car to get our beach stuff. We found a spot and relaxed in the sun for a couple of hours, although the water was pretty chilly. 

About 7pm we were still on the beach, so warm with the sun out. We did a quick change in the car park and went to find a cold beer and dinner...every second shop was a bar so this wasn't hard. We were pretty hungry by this stage even with the amazing gelato we had shared before beach time.

It soon became clear that dinner time wasn't until about 9pm in Sans Sebastian.... And because we had to drive all the way home we made the call to have dinner in a touristy pintxos bar which served food all day, called La Cepa. Hamish couldn't just have nibbles for dinner! We had yum fried calamari, and Hamish had boar in gravy and Lou had hake.
Then we did the long drive home and ate more pastries that Aritz's mum had left us.... Chocolate palmiers which were so sickly sweet while we watched Mission Impossible 3 dubbed in Spanish...living the dream.

Highlight: The beach was awesome, and the food…. and the sunshine. Definitely recommend San Sebastian.
Lowlight: Dinner places opening so late. 
Interesting Fact: San Sebastian developed into a fully-fledged seaside resort in the late 1800's, while some industry was developed in the district of Antiguo and outskirts of the city. Following the outbreak of World War I, San Sebastián became an attracting focus for renowned international figures of culture and politics e.g. Mata Hari, Leon Trotsky, Maurice Ravel, and Romanones.

Monday 22nd Sept

We awoke to the sound of torrential rain at about 7am, which continued till about 10am (even the rooster wasn't crowing!) Given the weather, we had a bit of a lazy start to the day and didn't exercise but had a big breakfast - this time with chocolate croissants and more Spanish omelette. We decided we are close to France so it would be rude not to make the 2 hour drive to Biarritz in Southern France. It was that or Pamplona and Hamish wants to run with the bulls when we go to Pamplona so Biarritz it was!

The drive was relatively uneventful and despite taking our passports with us we crossed the border with ease - one minute we were in Spain, the next we were in France. After a short drive from the border we arrived in Biarritz and it was stunning; everything a rich seaside town should look like in Europe. There were huge old mansions on every street and the main hotel - Hotel du Palais was Napoleons old digs.

We parked up by the casino and walked down the main beach to the lighthouse which was built in the 1830s. We had a wander round and then headed down to the main city centre to get some lunch. We found a well-priced set menu and had a good feed of salad, fish and lentils and steak and chips followed by a coffee. We walked off our big lunch by walking around the bay which was all higgledy piggedly with stone arches linking up to wee islands and little bays for boats to dock up. It was very charming. Unfortunately the sun didn't break through the clouds but it was warm enough.

 

Along with all the other tourists we walked out to see the sculpture on Le Rocher De La Vierage which was the Virgin Mary on a big rock which was cool and then carried on round the bay to la Cote des Basques where we found our dream home (although slightly out of our budget and not even for sale). If we only went to the casino and won some money! It was about 5.30pm by this time so we walked back to the car and headed for home for a leftovers dinner and a final sleep in our little house.

Highlight: Day trips to different countries…..Europe in a nutshell
Lowlight: The weather was not our friend today.
Interesting Fact: Biarritz became more renowned in 1854 when Empress Eugenie (the wife of Napoleon III) built a palace on the beach (now the Hôtel du Palais). European royalty, including British monarchs Queen Victoria and King Edward VII and the Spanish king Alfonso XIII, were frequent visitors.

Champagne Romance

Sunday 23rd Aug

It had been a long time (for us) since we went abroad and we were both excited to get out of London. We were off to Champange, France to celebrate Lous upcoming 30th birthday in style!  We were booked on the first Eurostar so had to get an early tube which we shared with die hard party goers that had been out all night and were waiting around for the first tube home!

The train journey to Paris was lovely and relaxing, Hamish surprised Lou with champagne truffles and mini bottles of bubbly to kick things off which was nice! After arriving in Paris, waited for ages to get our rental car and then we were off - well kind of... Hamish managed to cheat death by immediately forgetting we were in Europe and turning onto the wrong lane - directly into oncoming traffic! But after a quick evasive maneuver the rest of the drive was pretty straight uneventful.

Lou had booked a wee one bed cottage in a tiny village just outside Sezanne; we found the cottage and our host (even though we did have to wake her up! (it was only midday)). She was lovely and made sure we were well looked after. Being Sunday there were no shops open in Sezanne so she brought over some lovely wine, bread and eggs from her chickens as well as tomatoes and figs from her garden.

The cottage itself was gorgeous, very old school with old furniture but charming all the same, complete with a garden out the back with a raspberry plant dripping with fresh raspberries. We did a quick drive around to get our bearings and found a World War One memorial commemorating the first Marne battle. The French parliament decided to have this enormous milestone (more than 100ft high) built shortly after the end of World War One. This monument represents the courage, suffering and sacrifice of soldiers who fought the battle of the Marne. It looks like a giant carrot.

We didn't really know what to do for dinner as there was literally nothing open in the nearest town, that shamefully we resorted to a kebab shop….and judging by the number of locals in there as well, it wasn't a bad option!

We had an early night in the enormous super king size bed.

Highlight: The cottage was everything we were hoping for, and our host was so lovely.
Lowlight: Nothing being open! The French rigidly stick to nothing opening on a Sunday and everything closing between 12 and 2.30pm.
Interesting Fact: Hamish has driven on the wrong side of the road many times before, but always seems to take a wee while to settle into it!


Monday 24th Aug

We decided today on driving to Epernay, home to the famous L 'Avenue de Champagne (The Champagne Avenue). Its name derives from the presence of many leading champagne houses such as Moët et Chandon, Mercier and De Castellane. Residents say that this avenue is the most expensive in the world, more so than the Champs-Élysées in Paris, because of the millions of bottles of champagne stored in the kilometres of chalk cellars beneath it.

We kick started our Champagne education with a tasting at Mercier Champagne house, here we learned about how they make champagne but also how they marketed themselves in the early days. Some say that marketing in its traditional sense (advertising and product placement) really started with Champagne houses. For example, Mercier produced the first advertising film, and they also built this enormous oak barrel containing 200,000 bottles of champagne which had to be pulled by bulls to feature at World Fair in Paris in 1889.  

We continued down Champagne Avenue and wandered into Moet & Chandon, and had a browse (no purchasing!). We had a yummy lunch at a local bistro, and then it was back to the car via another tasting at a smaller less well known House called Michel Gourmand, where we tasted the difference between champagne stored in metal vats compared to oak barrels in its initial resting period.
 

We drove to another village called Bouzy where Verve Cliquot have a lot of their vineyards, there lots of little viewpoints and was just a gorgeous little town.

We had a leisurely drive home and chilled out and Lou cooked an amazing dinner accompanied by the wine that our host gave us and played some cards and then watched Gravity.

Highlight: Champagne Avenue was truly awesome, the buildings and the gardens alone were great but knowing there were thousands of bottles underground made it even better!
Lowlight: We hadn't quite realised that the distances between these towns was quite big, so a lot more time in the car than we thought.
Interesting Fact: The vineyards in Bouzy are classified as Grand Cru which means they produce the absolute best quality of grape. The lowest rated villages are rated at 80%. Premier crus villages are rated between 90 and 99% while the highest rated villages, with 100% ratings are Grand crus.

Tuesday 25th Aug

Unfortunately Lou couldn't sleep in so she hopped up and did some exercise while old man Hamish slept in.

We had a big day ahead of us, driving to Reims, the man city of the Champagne region. First up was the Pommery tasting. This was probably the best tasting we did; they had an amazing cellar which doubled up as a modern art gallery which looked awesome. Their premium champagne was Cuvée Louise, named after the founder of the House. It was super expensive so we passed on buying one of those bottles. Save that for a special occasion!
 

We had a nice wee lunch from a local bakery and bought some little treats for later – a raspberry tart and an opera cake.

We hit up the supermarket for some supplies, including £15 bottles of champagne! and we then tried to have a wander round the Tattinger House but you had to pay loads for a tasting so we passed.

Then it was our tasting & tour of Verve Cliquot, which was awesome. We learned loads, like the origins of the name (Verve is French for widow, and Madame Cliquot took the reins of the Champagne house when she was left a widow at the age of 27 and made the Champagne house into what it is today). And the meaning of the logo (Christian symbol of the anchor and the comet which appeared in the sky when she shipped her first load of champagne off to Russia which really opened up new markets for her). We toured the cellars and discovered that they were used as military hospitals during World War One. 

After a long day we drove home, Lou cooked coq au vin and we had nibbles outside in the sunshine, and played some more cards. 

Highlight: The cellars in Pommery were so cool, and a really good tour.
Lowlight: Tattinger was disappointing and Hamish beat Lou in every single game of cards we played.
Interesting fact: Divers found a ship that had sunk somewhere between France and Russia about 10 years ago and they found crates of champagne the mid-18th century which were still 'good' as in they hadn't gone flat. There were bottles from Verve Cliquot and Pommery and so they were gifted back to the Houses for display.

Wednesday 26th Aug

We had a nice sleep in, before Lou made French toast (spot the French theme here!). Today we wanted to do something a bit different so we decided to take advantage of the beautiful natural scenery and drive to the national park.

The main centre we were looking for was closed (this was another theme of the holiday) but we took a chance and started walking anyway, we walked through forests and vineyards for a few hours before tucking into our packed lunch. We didn't see any fellow hikers and we discovered why when we got home and translated the signs we kept seeing, it basically translated into "Danger, deer shooting, no access". So that was lucky.

It was a pretty miserable day weather wise so we headed and home and lit the fire (with the windows open cos it was a bit warm) and roasted marshmallows and had hot chocolates, lovely. 

Highlight: Seeing the French countryside, so chilled out and peaceful.
Lowlight: The weather was a bit rubbish and it would have been better if it wasn't so muddy!
Interesting fact: French marshmallows aren't as good as NZ ones.

Thursday 27th Aug

Once again Lou was up early so she picked some raspberries and we had fresh fruit & yogurt to breakfast. Today we headed back into Reims to have a better look around the city, primarily the Reims cathedral which had almost been completely destroyed in World War One but they are still in the process of restoring and repairing it. Some of the stained glass windows had a modern feel to it which was interesting. The cathedral celebrated its 800 year anniversary in 2011.

We then went over to the Palais du Tau which is like a mini royal palace where every French king since the third century had been crowned so there were a lot of crowns and cloaks etc to have a look at. We continued our wander around the city and found a nice cafe in the sun then wandered back to the Cathedral to have a tour up the tower, which was all in French and looked very informative. Managed to see some great views.

A brief rain shower didn't dampen our spirits and we had an obligatory tasting of the blanc du blanc variety of champagne which was really nice. We also stopped in a wee chocolate shop and picked up some samples.
We found our way back to the car and came home, the sun had come out so we read for a bit and then had some leftovers for dinner.
With no TV we drank a bottle of Demi sec champagne which was the sweeter one with a big cheese board, and played cards and went to bed very full and maybe a little tipsy!

Highlight: Reims was a great wee city, big enough to be interesting and small enough to wander around.
Lowlight: Finding carparking with our outdated GPS was an adventure in itself every time we hopped in the car.
Interesting fact: So the 3 grapes that make up champagne are black Pinot noir and Pinot Meunier but also white Chardonnay. The Blanc du blanc champagne is purely made up of the Chardonnay grapes and the demi sec refers to the amount of sugar that is added to the champagne before bottling, demi sec is a lot sweeter.

Friday 28th Aug

We wanted to do something different today so we scoured the map and decided to do the three hour drive to Lille which is in Northern France. It was a place of significance in World War One and Lou's great great uncle Alexander Sloan Baillie was buried there.

It was a beautiful sunny morning and we drove through patches of fog until we joined the motorway and headed north for Lille.The drive was uneventful apart from paying almost 20 euros in toll charges (but the roads were very good).

Lille was a lot bigger then we imagined and a lot like other European cities with a big town square and opera buildings. We didn't really know where to go and neither did the information centre girl so we took our chances and walked 20 mins or so to the city cemetery. Once we got there we realised this wasn't it so we bought some data on Hamish's phone and checked James's email and he pointed us in the right direction (shot Jimmy).

The little town of Armentieres is where we wanted to go. Once we found the cemetery it was very straight forward in finding his grave and quite sad too. So sad to think of all the young men who were killed a million miles from home in a war that wasn't theirs. The cemetery was in good nick and the French had donated that land forever so that was nice.

We started the long drive home and got back just after 6pm.We felt a little restless so we devised a bit of a fitness circuit and did some exercise before chilling out a bit in the sun (finally it had come out!)
Lou cooked up a lovely pasta dish and we toasted our holiday with a nice red before hitting the hay.

Highlight: Finally finding the grave, it was really nice to see.
Lowlight: Wandering around the Lille cemetery was far from ideal.
Interesting fact: 18,000 NZ soldiers died in World war One, this was at a time when the population was just over 1 million.

Saturday 29th Aug

Our last morning and it was a gloriously sunny day, we had breakfast outside in the sun and felt sad that we had to leave. We packed up and said goodbye to Dominique and did a bit of a drive around the Cote du Blanc region and stopped at a little champagne house and bought a bottle for about 15 euros - bargain!
 

We then drove back to Paris and dropped the car off before having a little bistro lunch outside the train station and hopping back on the train to London.
What a way to say goodbye to Lou's twenties!