Basque No Questions

As a couple of friends and I were approaching our 30th (although yet to still have mine at time of writing), we decided to plan a holiday for the occasion, with our respective other halves.

All food enthusiasts, my friend suggested Spain’s Basque country, a fiercely separatist region in the North, and a land of wine, sun, and, most significantly, pintxos (Tapas on a stick). The plan was to first spend some time in the de facto capital, Bilbao, before heading to the picturesque coastal town of San Sebastian (or Donostia as it is known in the distinctly un-Spanish Basque language).

Much as I would recommend it, I will add a warning that if you live in the North East of England, as I do, it is a bit of a ball-ache to get to. We had to get a train and a bus to Manchester airport and then fly from there. My fiancée (update since my last travelogue) Hannah had brought along a lovely new Cath Kidston suitcase for the occasion, complete with a matching lock, and informed me in the train station that she had neglected to bring the key. After some ill-fated hairpin attempts, the first task of the holiday was my equally ill fated attempts to stamp the padlock open upon the platform, much to the be/amusement of our fellow travellers, and causing frustration for myself and increased worry for Hannah, which she informed me was continuing to plague her even as we sipped celebratory champagne on the train.

Thankfully, upon arrival at the Manchester Airport hotel, we were pointed in the direction of a man with enormous pliers (who was located in a different hotel). Enormous his pliers may have been, but he did struggle to release this Cath Kidston lock. Eventually it caved. And this is of course the hilarious moment where we find the key inside the bag – but no – we found the key in Hannah’s other bag, which we’d had the whole time. On we go.

After an extortionate and quite crap breakfast and obligatory pint in Manchester Airport, we arrived promptly in Bilbao, headed to our Air B&B to de-bag, and then headed straight into town in pursuit of pintxos. My mate Rayner had a list of places he wanted to try, all of which seemed heaving, and eventually we just bit the bullet and headed into one. The process, as it turns out, is fairly manic – with streams of confused tourists piling towards the bar, picking their snacks and drinks, and then trying to pay without realising this is a pay later culture. The culture clash between this and the very different approach in Britain saved us quite a bit of money in miscalculated bills I swear, and I would also assume that the height of summer (we visited February) is probably not a great time to visit the Basque Country, as you would wait an awful long time for each individual small bite.

But, more importantly, how were the Pintxos? Absolutely phenomenal. I had a spider crab baguette and a beef baguette, and there weas even plenty of Veggie versions for Hannah. The food was washed down with the first of many glasses of ‘Txakoli,’ the local lightly sparkling white wine, traditionally poured from a great height, which I was quite the fan of despite not being a white wine drinker usually.

After a sufficient bar hop and more pintxos, we decided to head to one of Bilbao’s famous landmarks/attractions, the Guggenheim museum of modern art. The building itself is something of a work of modern art, and there were some interesting works within. I don’t know much about modern art, but I like what’s good (e.g. see first photo – huge sculpture maze that you can walk through), and I admittedly cannot get my head around a huge amount of it (see literally all other photos particular the last one sorry but what the hell is that man).

We decided to head to the town square for the evening and try some pintxos recommended by a local couple, the man of which was very passionate about his hometown, something his wife (not from Bilbao) said was very common among the locals. Her English was very good as she explained this as her husband could be heard in the background stating “Barcelona? Mehhhh Seville? Mehhh Madrid? Mehhhh. Bilbao? Bilbao YES BILBAO!”

I can understand this as someone who is very passionate about his own hometown, and it was quite nice visiting Bilbao as Newcastle United fans, as there is a friendship between the two clubs since we played them away in 1994 in a UEFA cup tie and enjoyed their culture very much. We played them again this season in the Champions League, in Newcastle, and they were great when they came over then. Interestingly, Bilbao (or Athletic Club as it is technically called) has a policy where they only recruit players who are from the Basque country. Pretty sure we saw some future players in the kids playing in the square as we had our evening pinxtos – phenomenal ability haha.

But for us, we had an important Newcastle United defeat to watch, and managed to find a pintxos bar that was showing it. The barman was a Spanish man who was originally from Blackburn and had the maddest accent I’ve ever heard, and we were introduced, by him, to an American who was obsessed with UK service stations, passionately enquiring about our preferred options.

Soon after, we were befriended by a fellow Geordie, named Ozzy, who had come to watch the match too, with his mate from Hull. Turns out Ozzy was from the West End, like us, and even went to our school. He attended about 20 years earlier, yet we seemed to have been taught by many of the same teachers. He said he was now a Spanish teacher and had been coming to the Basque country every year since his uni days. Soon we were out with these two lads in the more lively part of town, having being shown the way by a friendly pirate who pointed out the best bars with her cutlass. I was quite sleep-deprived by this point but I swear that’s what happened.

We finished the evening with a few rounds in a Punk bar, where the single toilet was guarded by a massive terrifying man (thankfully I didn’t need it), and five beers were the price of about two in the UK. Finally, we called it a night as we (and our two new mates) had an early coach to San Sebastian to catch…

As we crawled to the coach the next morning, we bumped into the two blokes again. Rayner remarked he’d had a sore head to which the distinctly middle-aged Ozzy asked ‘Why?’ I was feeling alright but it did catch up to me a bit on the coach. Thankfully a lovely Spanish dish of spicy eggs or some such stuff sorted me out at the other end.

San Sebastian is very beautiful, and much like Bilbao, great for food. It has the world’s highest number of Michelin star restaurants, but our budget meant more pintxos. Rayner was heartbroken when he went to book a place for us to have a famous Spanish omelette, to be told it had sold out. However, as he cursed the Reddit thread that told him 11:30am instead of 11am, we found many more lovely bars and drank lovely wines – the small eats nature of it all meaning you could just stand in the street. I was struggling to find food for Hannah at some places, as I would often say “Vegetarian?” and they would laugh hysterically and say “we have nooootthing,” but as he frequently gestured towards cheese, I realised this was a case of mistranslation and he clearly thought I meant Vegan. Thankfully, my friend Catherine was on hand to save me by asking, in both Spanish and Basque, for dishes “without meat” which seemed to work. In fact, her linguistic knowledge came in useful a few times, including later on when Rayner, on trying to ffer his pintxos to a Japanese couple, asked her “How do you say excuse moi in Japanese?” Not that it mattered, as they accepted, being common in Japanese culture of course, before he asked them “How you getting on?” Haha. My own efforts failed again when I confidently tried to order a dish in the language as the menu had translations on, until the barman kindly pointed out that it was French and turned it over for the Spanish. Anyhow, eventually received my “le cheeseburger” and don’t think he found it funny when I said “Merci.”

Our accommodation in Bilbao was beautiful, with a balcony overlooking the square, perfect for indulging in Basque cheesecake and ill-fated attempts to recreate the on-high txakoli pourings. The woman who sold us the Basque cheesecake insisted that we try other things too, as she maintained the cheesecake was merely a social media craze. The other things we had were delicious, but I think we all decided that, social media craze or not, the cheesecake was phenomenal.

The next day presented us with the opportunity to partake in some of the region’s culture, and we booked a history walk with a lovely local guide, beginning at the beautiful, and enormous Good Shepherd Cathedral, satisfying my appetite for European Catholic architecture. Beautiful also, was the baroque Basilica of St Mary, which I possibly preferred, although I do think the woman inside seemed to be annoyed we hadn’t paid for something. The tour guide sorted her out, anyhow.

She also took us up the Urgull hill, overlooking the gorgeous bay of La Concha, and a view of a statue, similar to Christ the Redeemer, that overlooks the town. A beautiful sight, it was also described by Ozzy the night before as having the world’s “most beautiful toilets for a shit” but we didn’t end up sampling these. Despite our guide’s warnings, however, two of my mates did sample the freezing waters of the sea, chuffed to find out that this made them honorary Donostians. I was alright for that, thanks.

Speaking of sampling, we found something quite special for our final meal, namely a cider house up in the hills. Here, we were treated to (with veggie options for Hannah) a full Spanish meal, including sausages, omelette, steaks, fish, cheese and crackers (a great dessert option for me doing lent ….. the aforementioned cheesecake was eaten on Sunday it doesn’t count!), and ,best of all, a glass each that, when taken down to the cellar, filled with enormous barrels, granted the holder access to unlimited cider, fresh from said barrels. The beverage was presented to you by a guardian of the cider, so confident in his abilities he would talk on the phone or look the other way as he struck the barrel and released the spout. I think we eventually got the hang of catching it in the glass. We only had twenty or thirty or so glasses each, after all.

And that was all there was time for. An abundance of beauty in terms of food, drink, scenery, and company. What better way to celebrate thirty years of life? Until next time, agur x