Author: Juliet Stratton (Page 38 of 39)

Brilliant Biarritz

17 October 2017 / Juliet Stratton / 0 Comments

Another day out, venturing into France, we decided to visit Biarritz. David had heard tales of, in the 60’s, it being inundated with celebrities such as Coco Chanel, Frank Sinatra, Ernest Hemingway and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. They have all stayed at the Hotel du Palais Imperial Resort & Spa, standing in splendid isolation on La Grande Plage. It juts out over a walkway through the cliffs called the Winston Churchill Allee! Originally built as a holiday palace by Napoleon III, grandson of Bonaparte, for his empress Eugenie du Montijo, it’s been a hotel since 1893 and nowadays commands 30 for a Ceasar salad starter – I would imagine a Platinum AMEX is necessary for a 3 course dinner with champers!! We have read that the Hotel renovates it’s rooms at a cost of between 90,000 and 350,000 per room!

We started the morning with a “Petit Dejeuner”, a glass of orange juice, three fresh mini croissants and a coffee, served under the red canopy of the Cafe De La Grande Plage for only 5 each. Well, we did have comfortable seats and fluffy cushions!! We strolled along the beach front, admiring all the palatial apartments overlooking the Atlantic gasping at the ludricous prices, a few million Euros for a 2 bed apartment (about 90m2) with a garage space. If you want the concierge services, a pool and spa, gardeners and a space to park the motorbike, you can double the price!!! However, they were stunning decorative art deco buildings, all glass balconies and fabulous views…..and amazing shops in the town centre.

The small port and it’s rocky outcrop of islets all added to the glamour and we spent a wonderful day just gasping and in awe, we “get it”……why Biarritz is brilliant.

At one point I showed David a beautiful clear Vase, mentioned that later in the month it is my birthday, and how a vase may not be totally appropriate in our trailer right now, such an item is a long term investment. He agreed that it was beautiful, until he asked the price!!! The Lalique vase in question was 4,400.00. Somehow, I am not worth that much!!!

The designer shops were quickly passed by, he commented on one lovely handbag, hoping it was cheaper than the vase. Sadly it was but not by much. 1,800.00. Maybe not today.

Posh Petit Dejeuner at La Grand Plage Cafe

Malla Harria Bay & Getaria Port

15 October 2017 / Juliet Stratton / 0 Comments

The bays along the Northern Spanish coastline are host to so many small towns, larger ports and even larger cities that hold so much history, the remains visible even in this day and age. History is linked to either fishing or mining. Fishing is still prevalent, restaurants offer “Fish of the Day” caught overnight and landed that morning. Every type of fish you can imagine can be found for sale in every fish monger in every village, as well as fish products, tinned sardines, potted tuna, shredded worm like fish and even dried fish!

From our hilltop site in Zarautz, we can walk out onto a clifftop walk that heads down into the town. At one point the pathway splits and the righthand path heads backwards away from the beach down to an old stone monument that has been restored in part. The stoneworks tell a story that makes you look upwards to the remainder of the structure in the fields as well down towards the sea and makes you wonder if it was really possible, but old photos prove the unbelieveable feat.

The Mollarri loading bay was built in 1906 to store and load iron ore extracted from the mines of Andazarrate to Zarautz, the merchandise travelled in wagons along the 11 kilometres of overhead power cables which connected both towns. Cargo vessels would pull up to a dock on the furthest rock and load iron ore via a pulley system filtered from the mountain railroad. The exploitation of the mines reached its peak during the First World War and dwindled thereafter, with this plant closed for good in 1927 mainly due to the akward location of the dock.

Bathers in late 1920’s on Zarautz beach.

Getaria Port is along the coast and is a working port as well as a popular tourist location, due to one of it’s famous residents having a museum in the town, a dress maker called Cristobal Balenciaga. The musuem takes up a large portion of the hilltop town but the older quarter is still traditionally cobbled streets, overhanging houses and a beautiful church dedicated to fishermen and the sea.

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San Sebastian, Monte Igueldo & Camino de Santiago

8 October 2017 / Juliet Stratton / 0 Comments

The neighbouring town of Donastia San Sebastian is the popular starting point of one of the Pilgrimage routes to Santiago. Traditionally the routes started at the pilgrim’s home and ended at Cape Finnesterre, Spain’s most westerly point. However this route is called the Camino de Santiago and follows the coast from San Sebastian along the Bay of Biscay until it reaches Santiago. Pilgrims who follow this and any other recognised route and can prove they have walked, cycled or travelled more than 200km are awarded a certificate (called a compostela) on arrival at the Pilgrims Office in Santiago. The pilgrim is asked to state whether their motivation for traveling the Camino was “religious”, “religious and other”, or “other”. In 2016, the number of pilgrims arriving in Santiago was recorded as 277,915!

San Sebastian is also home to a weird but wonderful ancient amusement park called Monte Igueldo, which began in 1911 as a social club that had been built on the top of a mount overlooking the town and it’s wonderful horseshoe shaped beach. It became an amusement park in the mid 1950’s, the original social club is now a hotel and the once derelict watch tower has been rebuilt to offer a 360 degree viewpoint over the surrounding coastline, bay and town.

The amusements were closed when we visited, they seemed to be run down and had a spooky air of desertion. The Tower, however, was something special. The inner staircase led up to the very top and the walls were full of old photographs from all eras showing bathers in the 1920’s, lifeguards in the 1930s, changes in the hillside houses over the years and several pictures of the three palaces dotted through the main affluent part of the town.

There is also a funicular railway from the Mount to the beach, again it was not running when we visited, but it is supposed to be the 3rd oldest funicular in Spain after being inaugurated in 1912. The beach is called La Concha and on low tide people can access the small island at it’s mouth.

We visited Miramar Palace, overlooking La Concha Bay, and had to admire the exterior only as the Palace is now a language and music school. The mansion was built in 1887, created to house the Spanish Royal Family when they decided to start spending their summers in San Sebastián. It was built in the Queen Anne English cottage style under the direction of the British architect Seldon Wornum, who also designed several mansions in Biarritz and Saint Jean de Luz nearby. It is built in brick and sandstone with timberwork and the landscaped gardens are open to the public.

View of La Concha Bay from the top of the Tower

The wooden roller coaster around a water boat ride.

Miramar Palace.

The enigmatic Miramar Palace.

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Pamplona Bull Run

7 October 2017 / Juliet Stratton / 0 Comments

We felt we could not spend time in Northern Spain without visiting the world famous city of Pamplona where they hold the San Fermin Feria del Toro (Bull Fair) – a week’s festival in July which starts each day with the Running of the Bulls through the city to the Bull Ring, and ends each day with a massive fireworks display and beef steaks on offer in every restaurant.

The bulls are brought from the surrounding locales to pens just outside the city, on their allocated day, and at 8am the bulls are freed to run the gauntlet through the town, up cobbled streets, through narrow side roads, up the central street Calle Estafeta (a small narrow shop filled street) and into the Bull Ring whilst having several thousand local idiotic men running in front of them. For the men to arrive the 500metres into the Bull Ring without injury is an achievement, their emotions and adrenaline pushing them to run faster and jump higher than ever to get out of harm’s way. The bulls, on arrival at the arena, are penned, calmed down, fed and watered, and some are selected to participate in the bullfights later in the day and evening, either in the traditional way with Matadors and their capes or with Matadors on horseback (Rejoneos). The history of the arena itself was explained, it was built in 1922 by monies donated by the locals in a sort of “buy a brick” lottery with an expansion to include a third tier increasing seat numbers to 19,700, it’s the oldest solid concrete building in Pamplona. The proceeds of the fights and tourist visits go towards supporting 580 senior residents in the Casa de Misericordia of Pamplona nearby.

The city is a lovely mix of modern, old, new and tidy buildings, yet parts of the old town are beautifully ornate and traditional.

Here are some pictures of the main square:

Here are pictures of the actual route from the beginning to the end of the Bull Run.

The “holding pens” are where the white barrier is. The bulls then run up hill towards the central square.

They come to the top of this lane and keep going uphill.

This is the final straight, across the lights to the main arena, all in about one and a half minutes.

The Town Hall in the City (below); we spent quite a bit of time sitting in a cafe outside, watching the world go by. The Bulls would run right past here and they certainly would not stop to admire the artistry on the buildings frontage!

The main street (above) is fairly narrow and full of overhanging balconies and would create a loud, noisy atmosphere. The arena itself was hot, dry and very big and so quiet……! Well it was on the day we visited 🙂

Bull??? Oh hell, let’s get out of here…..

Yes, bully to you too!

The journey home was an hour’s drive through the most amazing mountains and scenery, as we left Pamplona we were met by the greying coastal clouds again but this gave rise to some lovely cloud and sky formations. We were also so high that we were up in the clouds several times.

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We have landed in “Austrian” Zarautz!

7 October 2017 / Juliet Stratton / 0 Comments

We landed in Bilbao to brilliant warm sunshine after a wet rocky night, thankfully the mornings ferry journey turned out to be much smoother. We were one of the first to be off loaded and headed out of the port to open mouthed stares from all the travellers waiting to load onto the ferry for their return back to the UK. Within an hour we were driving up the very steep hill towards our camp site Gran Camping Zarautz to be greeted by the official landing party – Mum and Dad!!!

Waiting to unload!

My first reaction during that hour’s journey from the port of Bilbao to Zarautz was “Oh no, we have arrived in the wrong country…..” All the properties here are built in aa Austrian/Swiss chalet style, and the rolling green wooded valleys simply add to that image. I was expecting the locals to be wearing leiderhosen and speak French and yodelling!! No such luck. We had landed in Basque country where they don’t speak Spanish, they speak Basque!! This is a different dialect altogether so practising Spanish was instantly dismissed and I attempt to speak Spanglish now.

Picked up the new summer car on the A frame, all ready to go! Not really!!

Just before landing.

Dad helping David to celebrate our arrival with a special Bourbon bought for David’s 50th birthday by his mother.

Our first night at the local bar. We were having “just a small one” before dinner.

Chalets, chalets and more chalets!!!

We have spent our first week here settling in, finding our feet and trying to get the hang of the language. We are on a site that is perched right on the top of a very large hill, with it’s own access down to the beautiful long sandy beach. Downside is that it’s a very long way down (I’m told at least 400 steps) and an even longer way back up, we had to get a taxi back from the town the first time we did the walk!! The taxi driver spoke either Basque or French so I managed to chat a bit in Franglish!

The views from our pitch are lovely, overlooking the pathway down to the beach that all the surfers take. Sometimes they are fully dressed in their tight wet suits, such a cute view 🙂

Spectacular Zarautz beach and bay on a sunny day as seen from our site.

However, we have had quite a bit of drizzly rain this past week, curtailing the cliff hikes a little. We have walked the promenade several times after lazily driving the car down the hill, and been to the local farmer’s market where they spotted us “TOURISTS” miles away and decided to charge us €1.50 for 2 potatoes and an onion. David paid for it before realising how expensive it was, and no, it didn’t taste any better than a supermarket potato! The food here is cheaper than in the UK, certainly much tastier and fresher, but also veg and fruit are so much bigger! Check out the salad onions in the local market (pic below).

You are joking?? We are walking all the way down there?? No way!! Wine, you said, well ok then….

OK, half way down and it’s not too bad a walk. I am a little hot and sweaty……

Nearly there,,,,and my knees are like jelly. Now the 0.5km across the covered walkway, then the 2km along the prom! All for a glass of vino tinto.

Mum and Dad took the easy way down, by car!

The prom and bay on a grey day.

The local town square. I’m a sucker for beautiful buildings.

The local rip off market.

Mum and Dad headed off to Portugal after a few days to see friends so we have been exploring the local area on our own. Pictures of our days out to Pamplona and San Sebastion, as well as a visit to the Guggenheim Museum will be added separately.’,

Author: Juliet Stratton (Page 38 of 39)

Brilliant Biarritz

Malla Harria Bay & Getaria Port

San Sebastian, Monte Igueldo & Camino de Santiago

Pamplona Bull Run

We have landed in “Austrian” Zarautz!

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