Thu, Jun 15 - Back Home

We're home at last.  British Air, while their Premium Economy is roomy and pleasant, their scheduling is not!  Once again we were two hours late leaving Heathrow.  Our plane needed mechanical repair, and I guess we were lucky in that the substitute plane was the same model so we didn't loose our precious seats!  Champagne before take off - always a nice treat, but then the luggage loader went kaphooy and we waited longer while bags were removed and put back on again.  I was half way through a movie when I realized we hadn't budged!

Finally in LA and buzzed through passport control and immigration.

Actually the delays worked in our favor as there was no way we could have made the 7 PM SB Airbus, but we were right on for the 10 PM last bus of the day!

Home at 12:30 AM.  Up at 8 today, breakfast at Cajun Kitchen (no milk or eggs at home) and then picked up Maddie who hasn't stopped howling since she got home!

A great trip, planned by RRZ: five churches and cathedrals, 2000 miles driven, great food, three new birds.

XXX, Katy

Miss Maddie Home at Last!

Tue, Jun 13 - Frank Gehry's Museo Guggenheim Bilbao

Jeff Koon's "Puppy"

"Puppy: Detail - Live Flowers

We set off after breakfast along the Ría de Bilbao that runs through the city, as we had tickets for the Guggenheim at 10 AM.  We admired the lovely parks and beautiful apartment buildings lining the waterway, and, finally, the huge shape of the museum began to appear.

Titanium Plates

  We reached the Guggenheim and marveled at the stunning shapes and the outdoor artwork...but from our route of approach the entrance was far from obvious!   We walked all the way around this big building until we finally found the way in!  Amazing lack of signage, but dramatic views of the walls covered with titanium plates and amusing art in the public walkway made it well worth while.

Jeff Koon's "Tulips"

 We walked around the first floor finding a huge gymnasium-sized room with the permanent installations of Richard Serra's The Matter of Time which consisted of very large (~15' high x 2" thick x various lengths) steel sheets, some winding around, forming a maze into which one could walk. The walls narrowed and leaned inward, creating a claustrophobic space!  There was also a video of how these sheets were manufactured: not surprisingly in a shipyard - the only place where these large piece of steel could be shaped and angled precisely.

Part of Richard Serra's "The Matter of Time"

On the third floor was a display, Paris, Fin de Siècle, with many beautiful paintings of the late- impressionists.

Museum Interior

The second floor was closed in preparation of a new installation, so we wandered outside to admire the building some more and watch some of the many musicians and other street performers. Our favorite was three people dressed as ducks that clacked their beaks rhythmically.  When I gave them a Euro, they all bowed!!

The Quacking Ducks!

We had a reservation for 1 PM for lunch at the Museum Bistro and got a table overlooking the river.  We chose the tasting menu with matching wines and had a terrific tuna tartare, roasted egg with sweet cod juice (!), hake with vegetable purée, and roast lamb that, at first glance, appeared to be a chocolate dessert, but really was lamb!   For dessert we had caramelized French toast with ice cream.

Roast Lamb with Vegetable and Hazelnut Puree

After lunch we walked back to our hotel to nap and pack for tomorrow.  We are flying home on British Airways and hope that the terrible computer problems that BA suffered 10 or so days ago are completely rectified!

Mon, Jun 12 - to Bilbao

It started raining last night, but was reduced to drizzle by daybreak.  After breakfast we said goodbye to the lovely La Posada de Babel.  We originally had planned to visit the Altamira Cave Museum and see the replicas of the famous prehistoric drawings, but it's Monday and they are closed!!  So I checked the Lonely Planet to Spain and saw that there was a Gaudí house on our way to Bilbao, and a tour in English at 12:30.

 I managed to misdirect us into the pretty little coastal village of Pechón and we got back onto CA-131 and entered Comillas, an absolutely lovely town full of amazing mansions, but also a really  confusing road system.  We drove back and forth and finally found the Capricho de Gaudí, a very early Gaudí which he designed in 1885 for the Marques de Comillas who was born in this village, moved to Cuba and made a fortune on banking, tobacco, and slave trading, then returned to his hometown and fancied up the whole place.

Capricho de Gaudí

We finally found the building and as we were despairing of finding a place to park, a nice couple rapped on our window and said they were just leaving, so we parked, bought our tickets and joined the English tour just after it started.

  The building is made of brick decorated all over with alternating tiles of sunflowers and leaves.  The inside has only one bedroom as the Marques was a bachelor. Every room has different ceiling moldings and intricate methods of adjusting windows and moving multi-pieced wooden window coverings with very little effort.  The sad part is that Gaudí never saw the house, but designed it from afar, and that the Marques moved into the house and died a week later!

Gaudí's Stained Glass Windows

Folding Wooden Window Shades

A Ceiling in the House

The house was in private hands until around 1970 when the government decided to protect it.  The amazing thing is that it looks as if it was just constructed - nothing looks worn and all works perfectly.   After seeing several Gaudí buildings in Barcelona a few years ago, it was a treat to see this early work.

We hit our first traffic jam of the entire trip just outside of Santander; the freeway was completely jammed up for miles and we crept along until we saw the problem:  the center strip had been planted with hedge plants that needed trimming, so a crew was out there clipping and leaf-blowing and getting everything all spiffy while hundreds of cars edged their way along!!

Bob continued driving until we got near Bilbao; we got off the freeway and filled up on diesel and then headed into the confusing mess of freeways of the city.  Fortunately, west of the city we started seeing signs for "airoportua", the only word in Basque that has that many vowels and that I know the meaning of.  We were directed into the airport and found the rental car building which is part of the short-term parking structure.  Unfortunately, as we found with our arrival so many weeks ago, there is almost no signage directing one where to go to return a car. We drove around and around and by chance found the down ramp and descended two floors to Europcar's area.  We left our great little Audi and hauled our luggage to the terminal and found the taxi queue.  It took about 25 euros to get downtown to our NH Villa de Bilbao hotel; we checked in and got a nice room on the seventh floor where we relaxed for a while.

At 7:15 we rode the elevator down to the hotel restaurant, Le Bol Blanc.  They have a buffet for starters and desserts and a menu for mains.  A rather unusual set up, but it was OK.  You have to have some discipline to avoid stuffing yourself before you get your second course, but we had some good tapas followed by cod scramble with mushrooms for me and grilled salmon with a tasty fruit sauce for Bob.  Also an interesting Basque white wine.

Sun, Jun 11 - Hking the Coastal Trail

We awoke under a heavy marine layer and watched a very cute tufted-eared Red Squirrel climb over our lounge chairs!  After the usual good breakfast, we drove to the coast to find a trail recommended by our hotel owner.  

Red Squirrel

As we drove down the highway we, unexpectedly, saw more pilgrims trudging along a trail; it turns out that we are now near an alternate route to Santiago. 

We parked by a little restaurant,  walked down a lane and found the dirt road that runs along the coast for quite a ways.  We started seeing amazing views of sea-carved limestone headlands and islands. 

Wild Foxgloves

The trail was full of families out for Sunday walks and we passed happy flocks of hens and roosters, and cows, calves and a large, but placid, bull. 

Sleeping Calf

The Romanesque church in the distance rang its bells for half an hour while exploding rockets were sent up into the air!  The wildflowers were terrific. We turned back after about 1 1/2 miles and reached our car just as the light drizzle began to intensify into light rain.

Bob thought we should try to drive up into the mountains to see if we could get above the low clouds,  so we set off on small back roads.  He drove up a really narrow, twisting road in the rain - pretty scary as oncoming cars didn't tend to slow down very much at all.  We got up to 1500' and then the road started to descend, defeating our purpose.  We stopped at a gas station and I bought us imitation Magnum Bars (actually Nestle) to hold us until dinner.

We returned to La Posada and emptied the car since we have to pack everything up tonight as we are going to drop off our wonderful Audi at the Bilbao Airport tomorrow and take a taxi into  town for our city day, before flying home on Wednesday.

At 8 (or 6 by my watch!) we walked over to the main house for, yet another delicious dinner of puréed vegetable soup, followed by a tough, but flavorful, steak with mushrooms and two fruit chutneys.  We split a very intense local raspberry ice cream for dessert.

Library at Our Hotel

Sat, Jun 10 - To La Posada de Babel

There was so much food on our table when we arrived for breakfast, that I made a salami and cheese sandwich with the great bread and wrapped it up in my napkin for our lunch.  We checked out of our delightful hotel - after telling them that I had collapsed a chair in our room last night with a resulting goose egg on the back of my head!  They were very apologetic, but maybe the chair was just supposed to be decorative?

Carlos V City Gate

We crossed a bridge into the town of Viveiro which, unfortunately. we never got to explore.  I was able to see the Carlos V city gate as we passed by and out of town.  A sparkling day, great views of ocean as we drove along the north coast of Spain and soon were on the A-8 freeway and covered 185 miles very quickly.  The freeway passed over a long string of deep green agricultural valleys on high graceful bridges with bright blue rails.  We also passed through many tunnels, several over a kilometer long - a great way to not disrupt the landscape too much. 

Bob needed a break and we turned off the freeway at Villaviciosa and followed a small road to a lighthouse at Punta de Tazones, and, miraculously, found the visitor center of the Ría de Villaviciosa nature preserve along the way. The center was well-provided with displays about the wildlife of the area, although the nice girl handling the place agreed that this time of year is about the worst for seeing birds!

  We walked along the edge of a large estuary filled with mud flats, and then drove further along, seeing pretty little harbors, fishing boats, and weekend holiday parties at waterside cafes.   We ate our small, but delicious, sandwich and continued driving east catching hazy views of the Picos de Europa mountains, although coastal fog was moving in.

At 2:30 PM we exited the freeway and drove a short distance into La Pereda, a "suburb" of Llanes, a seaside resort.  We drove to our hotel, La Posada de Babel, which has a historical main house and several cottages of modern design scattered around it.  We have a large room with bedroom and living room area, plus a private lounging area outside. The hotel cat came over and visited with us as we relaxed and read.

Our Private Lounging Area

A few days ago I reset my watch to two hours earlier and now everything works out perfectly for me.  I get up at 6 AM, have dinner at 6 PM (if lucky), and go to bed at 10 PM which works well with the sun!   I think the whole thing about dining absurdly late is an affectation.  I don't know about the winter, but in summer with the sun rising at 7 and setting at 10, it would make  much more sense to go back two hours!

Church in La Pereda

La Pereda Water Spout

Bob and I walked a short ways into the center of La Pereda and saw the old public water spout and lavandería.  We returned to La Posada and sat in our outdoor chairs watching the marine layer evaporate and give us a good view of the high craggy mountains behind our hotel.

Mountains behind La Posada de Babel

  We had a very good dinner of a salad of green beans and potatoes in olive oil with a bit of crispy Iberian ham followed by hake fish with ratatouille.  For dessert we split a chocolate covered mousse on a hazelnut cookie.  And another great bottle of Albariño.

Fri, Jun 9 - Exploring the Coast

It was overcast this morning which we hoped would burn off. We got to to the breakfast room at 8:30 which I guess was too early as the tables were just being set up with various breads, meats, cheese, and sliced fruit.   We got plenty to to eat and then got a map with places to see marked by the lady handling the reception desk and took off.

The plan was to explore and then return to the larger town just north of us, Viveiro, for a late lunch.  We drove west on the coastal route which looked pretty obvious on the map, but as usual tiny dots on the map turned out to be complicated towns and major points of interest were subtly labeled!  We drove out to the lighthouse on Punta Bares,  which contains the northernmost point of Spain, and curved around the large shallow bay of Ortigueira with enormous acreage of mud flats exposed.  We're just a bit too early for the many thousands of shore birds that will begin arriving next month.

The next neck of land, the large Cabo Ortegal, contains the famous Vixia Herbeira, the highest ocean overview in Europe.  We drove up the east side of the cape with views of mud flats far below to the town of Cariño where, unable to locate a road to the cape, we turned back and tried the west side with more success.

  Horses, cows and goats  wander freely while cars race up these very narrow roads.  We came upon a German couple whose car was tilted way over in a ditch as a result of trying to avoid an on-coming, un-yielding vehicle!  We stopped and asked them if they needed any help, but they had already phoned for a tow and were consuming their picnic lunch.

We couldn't get all the way to the top of the cape as the road turned to dirt and became quite rough, and seemed unsuitable for our little rental car.  We turned around and found Vixia Herbeira, un-signed, but our GPS fortunately told us we were just above 2000'.  We pulled off and heard bagpipes playing.  We hiked up to a stone wall and looked over to see a spectacular sight!  Even better than Big Sur!  An amazing 2000' almost straight down drop to crashing surf.  The sun was out and it was spectacular.

I gave the bagpiper a Euro, as I loved the music, and he told us that the stone hut behind us was constructed by Napoleon's troops as a lookout. 

The Bagpiper by Napoleon's lookout

It was mid afternoon and obviously we weren't going to make it all the way back for lunch,  so we drove down the side of the steep hillside to a tiny village sitting on a cliff, San Andrés de Teixido, for a bite to eat.  You never know what you will get when you order something.  If you order an egg, you normally get just the egg; if you order a beer you will probably get olives and peanuts also.  We ordered a small portion  of pork empanadas and were surprised to get 3 pastries, plus a nice simple salad and a basket of crusty bread, and, with two beers, it was a fine meal.

The Church in San Andrés de Teixido

We returned to our hotel by 6 PM, and went down to the restaurant at 8:30 for their set dinner which was delicious:  elbow pasta with shrimp, clams,and black field mushrooms.  The next course was tuna tartare with minced onion and avocado, and with cheese cake for dessert. Then we were given three bottles of liquors: coffee, a clear bitter herbaceous liquid, and creamy coffee - all very good!

Thu, Jun 8 - Driving to the Bay of Biscay

We checked out of our very comfortable hotel and drove south around Santiago and headed northeast on the toll road AP-9 to A Coruna and Ferrol.  The sky was overcast, but with fairly light cover.  

There is a large park with some of the last old forest trees in Europe, the Fragas do Eume,  just inland and we turned off on a small road to find part of it. 

Fox Glove

We drove down a steep hillside into a river canyon, passing by through huge stretches of eucalyptus plantings - the other side of the canyon seems to be a natural woodland.  We crossed an old bridge and found a sign with trails marked and started walking down the road and came upon a hydroelectric plant.

Hydroelectric Work in Progress

  The workers just waved us though; we stepped over their tools and we started on a narrow trail overlooking the rushing river.  The trail was full of tree roots and rocks which made for difficult footing.  It was pretty but we didn't see many large old trees and so turned back after an hour.

We continued on a small highway through lush green rolling agricultural countryside ending up in the village of Galdo, just short of Viveiro and the coast.  The roads were reduced to tiny lanes and we found the lovely old building of Pazo da Trave, our hotel for the next two nights.  We got a simple room on the third floor with a wonderful view of a vineyard, the hotel's tile-roofed hórreo and a small chapel. The hotel is filled with oil paintings and ceramic artworks as well as old family photos. 

Hotel Pazo de Trave 

Our Room View: Hórreo, Chapel, & Vineyard

Bob didn't want to eat dinner late at 8:30, so we drove to a nearby cafe serving menú del día and split a large chicken salad, paper thin breaded beef with fries and yogurt with honey.  Not great, but filling.  After a nap,  I walked around the village taking pictures, as we so often drive through places like this but so seldom have a chance to really look at them.   Quite overcast by 9:30.

Art-filled Hotel

Interior of Our Hotel's Chapel

Slat-roofed Farm Houses