Who would have thought that it could be cooler in Spain than in France? We were so happy to leave the fourth heat-wave of this summer season in France to spend some time in the region known as ‘The Green Spain’ (which is due to it’s relatively high rain fall and mild weather). We spent our first week in the area called Asturias and our first quick stop was in a small town called Ribadesella which unbeknownst to us was celebrating one of it’s festivals on that particular day (we soon discovered that the Spanish like to party!). This annual festival involves more than 1000 canoes descending the Sella river to finish in the town (according to the tourist office employee, 2 French guys arrived first this year). The streets were jam- packed with people and those from Ribadesella and the surrounding towns were proudly donning different coloured waistcoats which we discovered distinguished their origin. There was music, food and apple cider flowing.
We stayed in a nearby charming town called Cangas de Onis where we were amused by the traditional method of pouring the local cider which involved holding the bottle above the head and the glass below the waist to get the maximum distance between the bottle and the glass in order to add some foam (and flavour) to the almost flat beverage. We were less amused when we realized that our particular waiter was the least skilled of the team and quite a bit of the cider landed on the ground….though in the end, the performance was probably better than the taste and at 2.50€ per 1lt. bottle, it was relatively cheap entertainment.
One of the highlights during our stay was definitely canyoing in the stunning Casaño river. I’d always been a little hesitant about putting on a wet suit and sliding, jumping from heights, abseiling, climbing on slippery rocks in freezing cold mountain streams but it was exhilerating. A lovely family from Madrid joined us and the Guide for this memorable experience.
The local blue cheese made with cow, goat and ewes milk was pretty good too.
A visit to Spain would not be complete without one breakfast of thick hot chocolate and some churros to dip into it….needless to say we all felt sick after it.
We then visited the region of Rioja which is famous for its wine. We went out one evening to the city of Logroño for pinxtos (‘pinxto’ is tapas from this Basque region). Despite arriving pretty early – by Spanish standards – 9pm (most restaurants start serving dinner around 8:30pm) – the narrow pedestrian district was already bustling with people drawn to this culinary capital. One member of the family was designated to select the desired plate/s from those which lined the bars while the other members saved a spot to eat them (ideally around a small ‘perch’ in the street). The idea is to wander from bar to bar and so chairs are not used …nor readily available.
We explored the stalactites and stalagmites of the caves in Ortigosa and did a little more hiking in this area before joining San Sebastien a few days later where I was lucky enough to learn how to cook some of them thanks to a 5-hour cooking class which was offered to me for my birthday by my big brother and sister (thank you again Ian and Anne). We ate at 2:00pm which is probably the earliest acceptable time for eating lunch). The chef also offered us a Negroski (which I discovered is a Negroni with vodka in the place of gin), some cider, some wine and sherry to finish…..woah, I’m surprised we managed to produce 5 delicious dishes.
Then we visited Bilbao to finish up the holidays. Up until then I’d always considered L’Orangerie in Paris and the Moma in NY to be my favourite museums, but I’d now have to add the Guggenheim museum. The exterieur and the interieur were spectacular and the works of art were equally impressive.
And so we are now back in the ‘hexagon’ that is France and we watched the James Bond film Goldfinger last night which featured the Austin Martin car that is now displayed on the second floor of the Guggenheim museum along with many other exceptional cars…although to be honest I was more interested in the car-related artworks that lined the walls. It was the first 007 film that I’d ever watched…but I had seen a couple of the French spoof films OSS 117 featuring Jean Dujardin before. The secret spy OSS 117 was actually a character created by French writer Jean Bruce in 1949 – four years before Ian Fleming wrote the first ‘James Bond’ novel. Goldfinger had an interesting storyline but I think I preferred the OSS177 films which make fun of chauvinism and machismo (and which star some talented actors including the fabulous Pierre Niney in the most recent version).
I digress. Summer holidays are almost over, the days are getting shorter and we’re (almost) ready for ‘la rentrée’. I’m actually looking forward to some cooler autumn weather.
Start with intention 