The Old Countries

Dave in the Old Countries. Including but not limited to France, Spain, Denmark, Germany...

Thursday, July 20, 2006

Australia on the Atlantic

San Sebastian is a beautiful little town in the heart of the Basque Country, yet another of Spain's innumerate regions, one shared with France. It's also on the Atlantic coast and that means real beaches!

That was the first thing we did. (Ange, Cath, Rach, Nick, me.) Well, after almost getting washed away while sitting on our bags outside the closed tourist information office at 7am. Some parts of Spain are in drought, but in the north they sluice the streets with water regularly. Anyway, we dumped our bags at our still fast-asleep hostel at about 10am (a portent of things to come) and straight to the beach, to wash out some of the kinks of the overnight bus.

San Sebastian's heat was a little drier but no less mad than that of Barcelona, but this was eased by the beaches. These are reputed to be some of the best in Europe and I think we agreed, though we swam mainly on the "surf" beach. Nothing like Bells but much better than the Mediterranean, and pretty friendly waves for body-surfing. Beautiful sand, and packed full of peopl but rarely too full.

The other part of the story of San Sebastian is the Australians. A guide in Madrid was to tell us that this year, for the first time, many tourists in Spain are Australian. In San Sebastian, we felt in the majority - so many Oz accents, probably because it's on the infamous Busabout tour route. So the story of the hostel was partying late at night and not much movement in the mornings; not that we partook of much. Seemed a little too much like being in college again, really, as most of the Busabout kiddies seemed just out of school.

We did lie on the beach and swim a lot. But we also journeyed to Bilbao, to the Guggenheim; apparently some sort of famous modern art museum. I really liked the Richard Serra installation, though less when I heard him talking about it on the audio guide. But most bestest for me was Russia!, an exhibition of art from and inspired by and even just collected in Russia. Along with a good dollop of Russian history, it inspired me to get up there on a trip soon. The Socialist Realism works were especially memorable - so many lies! And the work of people like Kandinsky and Malevich is great. And it's all so well-presented; having been to a few big galleries this trip, this was probably the best run and easiest.

On the flipside, we took an organised trip to see a museum of work by Ernesto Chillida, one of the premier Basque artists. He does big bits of metal and rock in the same way many people seem to; I don't reckon I quite appreciated them fully but it was a really nice rolling green setting and a great traditional Basque farmhouse housing most of the works. And we played traditional Basque games after, tug-o-war was fun. And heard traditional Basque music played acoustic live, though he soon segued into Chilli Peppers and Dylan covers.

Other non-swimming related activities included tapas, tapas and more tapas. It is really good, you do it the traditional way and have a small drink and one signature dish at each of many bars. And in the Old Quarter, surrounding our hostel, were probably hundreds of tapas bars. Lots of seafood and creamy sauces and patatas bravas and tortillas. That said, I haven't been able to look at another tapa since.

Also, the best ice-cream we've tried so far. It's required when it's that damn hot.

And then another dang overnight bus, to Madrid.

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