Boog's Blog

It is a several hour drive with a choice of decent roads. We took the less speedy route but also avoided the switchback route. Had to cross a bunch of mountains to reach Burgos.

Lots and lots of speed cameras and again no potholes. We have driven now for many days and seen 1.25 potholes on the main roads.

Research shows that the Spanish road authorities

are very fussy about giving out tickets, and the Spanish drivers have lots of tricks to avoid them using the road signs, the announcements and the GPS in the cars.

3.4 kilometer tunnel; one of the longest we’ve driven through.

First stop in the central shopping center outside of Burgos was Decathlon. A sporting goods store about the size of a giant Walmart. Got a bolsa for overflow. Prices are extremely reasonable.

The hotel, NH Palacio, is a 16 century convent that has been converted. It was clearly a beautiful palace. We got incredibly lucky in town, finding a free parking spot right in front of the hotel for our entire stay. We have a good room thanks to Michelle. We are staying free as she had instructed us to obtain GHA membership.

If you blow up the picture, you can see the four different levels of jamon Iberico and the price. We learned about these when we went to the museum of jamon on a previous trip along the Camino.

Dinner at hotel.

First some good wine

Then local stuff

In fact, sent back twice to get it cooked sort of the way we wanted it. Very tasty though.

The total bill with wine, coffee, steak stew, tax and tip was €70. Not Palo Alto prices.

Final day here before heading South. Unfortunately, we had two day 12s, a typo.

Visited the main library in San Sebastian It is a very modern library; large and the best place to go for clean bathrooms. It sits at the entry to the old town in a large impressive building. The library is downstairs.

Notice that they are not using the Dewey decimal system.

The poem on a wall next to the entrance is in Basque. It would be nice if a Spanish version had been included since there are not many Basque speakers around. Translation at end. Claude would not translate it for copyright reasons, but ChatGPT didn’t give a damn.

At the far end of the playa is a piece of art that we remembered from previous visits.

A.I. stuff: Tectonic rotation (Late Eocene–Miocene, Pyrenean orogeny): As the Iberian plate collided with the European plate (closing the Bay of Biscay’s opening phase and building the Pyrenees), the basin fill was compressed, folded, and steeply tilted — in many places to near-vertical or overturned dips. This is the same shortening event responsible for the dramatic vertical “flysch” walls at Zumaia and Deba. So the beds you’re looking at didn’t form vertical; they were rotated ~90° from horizontal by this compression.

Quality was worth a tip; yes, fire is burning inside. Might be the Sagrada Familia.

Then off to the last of the pintxos dinners in Basque area.

Another perfect meal Boog style.

Yes. The poster is in Basque (Euskara). It is a poetic invitation to enter a library and, in effect, to enter the world of books.

Title

“Liburutegiak gonbidatzen zaitu”
= “The library invites you.”

Here is a fairly literal translation, while keeping the poetic tone:

Come, give me your hand.
If you want, bring with you
your black hat,
your blue scarf,
or your red clown nose.

Turn off your mobile phone.
Look for your special abriteportas [this is an unusual/possibly invented word in the poem],
otherwise the door will not open.

Leave behind the noise of the outside world.
Put down or remove what is unnecessary.
Put away your bad mood.

Then fill yourself with the surprising dust of the shelves.
And come with us.

You must take a break from the hustle and bustle.
From inside and from outside.

You must take in what can be seen and what cannot be seen.
Look, from within yourself, into the distance.
Listen, so that you can enter into yourself.

Be brave, laugh, be touched,
be afraid, and then relax.

Lose yourself along the way so that you can find yourself,
put words to what you feel,
wander through the paper jungle,
laugh from the depths of your soul,
walk sleepily through a data-pantile…

You need to imagine and to dream.

You will speak words; you will make words speak.
You will entertain yourself; you will make others happy.
You will console yourself; you will console others.
You will be moved; you will move others.

Where are we going?
Have you figured it out?
THE LIBRARY.
Come in!

A few phrases are deliberately playful and difficult to translate literally. The central message is quite lovely: the library is presented as a place where you leave the noise of ordinary life behind and enter a world of imagination, emotion, discovery, and connection through books.

The final “Noski!” means “Of course!” or “Certainly!”.

Easy relaxing day. Wandering. 

Pastry shop and coffee at the entrance to the old town. A beautiful old patisserie.

A good percentage of the boats have no motor and just a set of oars.

Potatoes boiling in a large pot and then later large chunks of onions added to the top.

Passed some folks eating this nice looking (although still mooing) steak, and I took their picture with their permission. We have seen this multiple times where the Spanish eat just the meat and there’s no vegetables or any side dish. Just sit down and buy a large steak and split it between X number of people.

Picnic dinner in the hotel. Found a good (probably Charentais) melon, some fruit, granola, cheese and yogurt.

Drove to San Sebastián via St Jean de Luz.

The best way in is taking exit 3 from the big toll highway to avoid the corniche.

Many children in what looks like summer camp or day camp. Multiple camps each with different toys. Did not look like the kids were doing much swimming.

Crepe with Sucre and limon

Buckwheat crepe with piperade and undercooked egg. Both really excellent (not the egg).

We are in a converted convent Hotel Convento Zenit.

Similar size to St. Jean although San Sebastian is a much much bigger city.

We have visited this bar on our previous two visits. Appears to have been upgraded with more tables now and nice table service. Still very busy.

A rather surprising pintxo that was surprisingly good.

Sunday, Assumption day, holiday.

mostly a shopping day. Picked up lots of odds and ends in a few nice things.

well, remembered from a previous visit

The man in the red shirt is a local politician who we chatted with for a while. He like others realize Trump is a con man though they use the term corruption.

I watched them for a while. Professional grade probably been playing as a group for decades. 

Very nice relaxed dinner.

Massive day at Les Halles.

Giant special fireworks.

The downside of France: everywhere outside you smell cigarette smoke. In cafés, plazas, just walking around

A.I. stuff: The August 15th fireworks show (Biarritz sous les étoiles) is one of the biggest summer events on the French Basque Coast. The significance and symbolism behind the date stem from two major cultural reasons:

1. Assumption Day (L’Assomption)

2. Napoleon III & Biarritz’s Royal Heritage.  he built a palace here and turned this fishing village into what it is today. 

August 15th was historically Saint-Napoléon Day (la Fête Napoléon), the official national day established under Emperor Napoleon III.

Perfect!

Perfect hard crust

Dual fireworks, from the lighthouse and from the big rocks. both displays converge over the plage.

One of the best fireworks we have seen. Some really creative hearts, and stars and weeping willows and on and on and on really first rate. 

We took the slow route, which is the easy route without having the giant mountain passes with nauseating switchbacks.

Impressive tunnels some well over a kilometer. Again, a full day of driving without seeing a single pothole on roads that are absolutely perfect and higher speed limits than we have.

The last 50 km into Biarritz were terrible. long 5-10-15 minute queues at each tollbooth of which there were many. Then, to hotel, which is in centre ville. We had Directions how to get in by some circuitous route, opening barriers by giving them a call, people behind us coming out of their cars and banging on our window, that type of thing, roads to small for our car, as you would expect.

Our room was not quite ready so we went for a walk and stopped at a bar for a beer and what did they have there but our favs: patatas bravas and peppers de padron. Yeah! Yum.

City is a madhouse for shopping eating ice cream and just eating.

Hoards everywhere eating, drinking, socializing, maybe more.

Fireworks tomorrow at midnight, we think.

Stupidly hot with high of 102F.

Side trip to Briones

“Perched on a rocky outcrop in the Rioja Alta subregion of La Rioja, Briones is widely considered one of the most picturesque medieval towns in northern Spain.”

But not quite as picturesque as LaGuardia.

14th century church according to the guides (another Sta. Maria).

QB has video of the details but this shows the medieval village as it would look on one day in June

Dinner in traditional restaurant. Francis Paniego, chef with Michelin stars, restaurant a la carte dinner.

The big day!

Almost 100 degrees just before eclipse.

First a visit to an archeological site. Two signs: one said open today, the other not. Not

So, we drove to Logroño. A good town we knew from the walk on the Camino, we had eaten there and seen the cathedral. It too was closed until 5 PM

99 F and Eclipse event begins – it is 18:30

The picture is from the outdoor patio a lovely place to sit at 95° and have a three star Michelin chef prepared heavy dinner. I fussed, it seems no one else fussed, surprise. They have agreed to let us eat privately in an air-conditioned space- the wine bar. Service was excellent.

The muscadet wine was a dessetin itself.

Hotel breakfast. Good rolls, coffee, cake. Stingy re yogurt. Not enough fruit. Meat and salami lovers paradise.

Laguardia, a medieval hilltop town that is mostly pedestrian with two major churches, one on the north and one on the south side. The one on the north side has the oldest polychrome collection, including a polychrome portal from the 17th century. The church was built in the 13th (gothic) and then redone with more added (totally baroque) in the 17th.

No cars due to soft underpinnings

Nice tourist town, good to walk about in the am before the 95 degree heat sets in.

Then you are admitted to the inside, which is closed to the public except by tour.

Residence in the hotel includes this winery tour. Many tourists come for this “experience “. Especially good if you never toured Napa or other regional wineries.

Along with discussion of color, smell, and notes of course.

Just wanted to compare with the others. Yes, better and more to my liking but the others were also ok to good.