Proceeding without pictures!

Ok, internet has been proving elusive – sort of therapeutic but I would like to post a few pictures – so in the meantime I will write this and hope for the best tomorrow. Or later sigh.

This morning we grabbed enough stuff in a backpack for an overnight adventure and drove south. You see, Vieux Bocau is only just two hours from the Spanish border.

First stop was San Sebastian  - but first, I need to mention that cars travel on the motorway at up to 130ks – encroyable!

As we crossed the invisible border, Henry pointed out the train tracks – General Franco made sure that the gauge on the train wheels on the Spanish side were different from the French side – he was paranoid about being invaded by rail – so now trains moving along these tracks need to stop at the border and change wheels…no-one saw that coming.

San  Sebastian  has the look of some of the older buildings in Paris, but less elegant, heavier in style.  We drove  around in circles for nearly an hour trying to find a carpark, but the parking buildings kept moving – you could see the sign for one, circled around the one way streets to find the entrance, and then it reappeared on the other side of the one way street!. These parking buildings are all under the street, so easy to hide when tourists need to find them.

The inner harbour is two crescents of gorgeous golden sand beaches, complete with blue and white parasols and tanned bodies. As we couldn’t find anywhere central to park, we contented ourselves with a more suburban park, and then a funicular ride to a ‘entertainment centre’ complete with food that belongs .. somewhere .. but surely not in Spain with the gastronomy that it is renowned for. Floppy chips of a strange hue, toasted sandwich with four layers of toast with not much in between. I’m moaning about the food aren’t I..

We left San Sebastian and drove further south to Bilbao, real Basque country .

We deposited our sac a dos (back packs) and headed into the old town, on a mission to visit the Guggenheim Museum, found a bar before we embarked on a bit of culture, and then spent the next two hours or so wandering and listening with our commentary earpieces  - Chagal was the current exhibition. I've seen some of his work before and particularly like the Green and the Red Rabbis - one of these he had painted twice - the second one ten years later when he discovered that his art dealer had sold the original one thinking that Chagal was dead (he'd just been hiding out in Russia because of the war). You will need to google these paintings to check them out given that my computer keeps telling me I have no internet connection - and do wonder why he painted faces upside down and people floating in the sky.

And all of a sudden it was 8 pm and the museum was shutting up for the night. Food and wine on our minds, we wandered back along the canal –and lo, a festival had been prepared for us! I think it was the festival of the Pentecost ? We sat in a town square and drank wine and ate tapas . Everyone just joined in (not us, I mean the local people) and no-one was too cool and everyone knew the steps. This is a living culture which has inured for centuries, the dances and the unique language. Fiercely independent, this area was at war for years.

Which was an interesting thought as the most incredible fireworks display started. If you happened to be a little old lady trying to sleep tonight, I can imagine you would be under the blankets hiding, thinking the fighting was back – the booms echoed through the narrow old streets. (Actually, if you were a little old lady you would have put your make up on, grabbed your swirling skirt and your dancing shoes and been down in the town square, we saw them there)..