We’re coming to the end of our Spanish holiday, so today’s goal is simple: get to Tours in France. We take our time with breakfast, because lunch will be highway food, which is not often appetising.. It’s been raining the whole night and morning, fortunately our car is parked inside and we can pack up… Continue reading A rainy ride to Tours
Only one plan for today, in some ways the culmination of our gastronomic adventure here in Spain: lunch at Arzak. We have breakfast a bit earlier, then find an activity both relaxing and conducive to working up an appetite. We park in the center of Donostía-San Sebastian. If you’ve been wondering why I don’t write… Continue reading Idle, eat, idle
The alarm goes off at eight. It’s already light outside, it looks like it’s going to be a sunny day. We take our time at the breakfast buffet and then try to make up our mind about what to do, there’s a lot of options, but also quite a few things we’ve seen already. In… Continue reading Moutains and sea
Only one thing on the plan for today: lunch at Mugaritz near Donostia-San Sebastian, a restaurant famous for its experimental style. We’d just gotten used to Spanish hours, but early this morning we switched to winter time, so three pm became two pm and we get up at eight, which is actually nine? Or something?… Continue reading A challenging meal
I’m up at all hours in the night, but around nine I feel steady enough to leave the hotel room. I sip ginger tea, gingerly, while Arne has breakfast. We scroll through Google maps to find a quiet activity or two on the road to our next destination. We give the mountains a final wave… Continue reading A quiet drive
Up eight, breakfast at nine. Breakfast is served in the veranda, first the usual meats, cheeses and fruit arrangement, with homemade yoghurt and local honey, then a choice of warm dishes, of which I select the pancakes. Delicious. It should be dry today, but we’re in the mountains, so we pack rain jackets and put… Continue reading Anboto mountain
Up at eight, breakfast at nine, packed and ready to go around ten or so. We have a lunch reservation at the restaurant Txispa (pronounced tsjispa - it means spark) in the tiny village of Axpe-Atxondo, about a ninety minute drive from here. We were politely informed by mail that we should arrive between 13:20… Continue reading Basque-Japanese cuisine
Up at eight, breakfast at nine, away by ten, we’ve finally acclimated to Spanish time. We plan to spend the whole day at Cabárceno, officially called Parque de la Naturaleza Cabárceno, which we have visited on our first trip to Spain in 2008 and always wanted to see again. It’s situated in a green valley… Continue reading Cabárceno
It’s a bit weird to start a daily post with yesterday’s dinner, but what can you do when dinner time starts only at eight thirty.. We have dinner in the hotel restaurant, where we’re the only customers until another guest walks in around ten. The waitress speaks English and they even have an English menu… Continue reading Unexpected pleasures
I wake up before the alarm at seven, so I grab my tablet and browse for new books, it’s a weekly struggle, even though I always read at least one old book before I buy a new one.. I decide to read an old favourite again: The Hob’s Bargain by Patricia Briggs. We have breakfast… Continue reading To Spain
I wake up at a quarter to eight, that’s perfect. We crawled in a bit later yesterday, as I infected mom with the Words of Wonders virus and we spent the whole evening playing on my phone. Getting quite far in the butterfly tournament! Breakfast is leftover bread with olive oil, grapes and cherry tomatoes.… Continue reading Fine arts
Up at seven again, it’s just impossible to get used to Spanish time unless you really make an effort, but then afterward you’ll have to make a similar effort to get back on Belgium time. Both are in the same time zone, but the Spanish do have a different rythm. Fruit salad and goat yoghurt… Continue reading Shop & Eat
I wake up around seven, I can tell mom is awake as well by the light of her phone coming through the frosted glass door, so we confer briefly and decide to get up. We have some crackers and dark Belgian chocolate for breakfast and spend the early morning looking up plant info for the… Continue reading Guggenheim
Up at eight. Eight! It’s just that there’s nothing to do early in the morning, plus restaurants start serving lunch only at two or so, so we’re shifting our whole day out of whack. First job is to get the DHL shipment ready, so after a quick run to the bakery and a breakfast of… Continue reading A day by the sea
After a quiet flight of about 90 minutes the plane lands in Bilbao, Spain. It looks a bit rainy, or foggy, hard to say. Since I’m in a seat way at the front, I can exit the plane pretty efficiently and, admiring the design of the building, make my way to the luggage carrousels and… Continue reading Logistics
I’m taking off today on a city trip to Bilboa (Spain), internationally known as Bilbao. Not to be confused with Balboa, as in Rocky Balboa. I’ll meet my mom, who left for Bilboa from Belgium about 4 weeks and 2000 km ago. 2000 km! I took a local train this morning at 7:13, switched to… Continue reading To Bilbao! Bilboa!
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