On The Road Again

 

We had a view of the garden from our room at Parador de Limpias.

We had a couple nights on the road between the Picos de Europa and Bilbao, our final Spanish destination of this trip. Because I had long heard of the Spanish paradores, I booked our first night stay at Parador De Limpias.

The Spanish government owns parador hotels, with the first one opened in 1928. They typically include historic or noteworthy buildings that are turned into luxury hotels to preserve them. However, Parador De Limpias, while a pleasant hotel, is not exactly a luxurious one. You can tell that it once may have been, but, while not run-down, it's obvious it was once more elegant.

We had a room with a view out onto the garden in a newer part of the hotel, which really did not fit architecturally with the historic section. I booked our stay through our Chase credit-card portal using points, but even if I had paid full price, this hotel was not expensive. I suspect those that are truly elegant have a much higher price tag. Nonetheless, we had a clean, spacious, modern hotel room and we enjoyed a very tasty dinner there. I had a chicken breast with creamy potatoes and gravy, and Kevin had the traditional Cantabrian stew made with beans and chorizo sausage, which he said was delicious. I will have to find a recipe for it.

It's amusing how we came to eat dinner at the hotel. We had planned to go to a nearby tavern or another hotel restaurant, because their prices were better. So we set out about 6 p.m. to walk to the restaurant. We had gone some distance when we encountered a gentleman who spoke English, He told us the restaurant was farther up the hill, which was quite steep. We decided to go to the tavern in the lower town instead. (Because of my knee again.) However, when we got to the tavern, a long distance away, we were informed that they did not serve even tapas at that hour, only drinks. So we decided to walk back to the hotel, pick up the car, and drive to the restaurant that we had read about. Surprise! The only thing they were serving was hot chocolate and churros! But we were hungry and did not want hot chocolate at a little after 6 p.m. As a result, we didn't get dinner until 8 p.m at the hotel, which is about the earliest time for dinner in Spain, (We knew that, but we thought we could at least get a snack that was not chocolate and churros before then!)

The historic portion of the parador is lovely though. And we each got a free drink because I had signed up for the Amigos de Paradores before we left home. I don't know if or when we'll get to another parador, but if we do, we're guaranteed a free drink.

The next morning we had a light breakfast at the parador and headed down the road to San Sebastian/Donostia. The city is called San Sebastian in Spanish, but Donostia in the Basque language, also known as Euskara. On the northwestern coast of Spain, the road signs all say "San Sebastian," but once you get close to Basque country, the signs say "Donostia."

It's only right. The Basque language is interesting. It is a language isolate, meaning it is not like any other tongue. Today, it borrows some Spanish or French words, because the Basque area extends over parts of northern Spain and southern France. Euskara is the oldest language in Europe and predates the arrival of Celts and Romans in Spain. But during the dictator Franco's time, the language was banned. Basque writings were even removed from tombstones. In recent times, the Basques, who are a very proud people, have fully embraced the language and their customs and are rejuvenating them.

So yes, Donostia is probably a better name than San Sebastian, given the long history of the people and their speech. (It is said that the Basque word for knife derives from the word for stone, so perhaps Euskara is the language that evolved from those prehistoric graphic symbols in the Spanish caves.)

The sun was out in full glory at San Sebastian, which boasts some of the prettiest beaches on the coast.

We walked along the waterfront and made our way into the old part of town.

  

Everyone recommends that you have pintxos (pronounced peen-chos) in Donostia, which is the name they have for tapas. So we found a bar with outside seating and ordered drinks and two pinxtos each. Unfortunately, it didn't occur to me that we were on the Atlantic, so of course seafood is the food of choice. We weren't sure what we were getting, but we could tell some pintxos had Spanish sausage and cheese. Kevin ordered one of those. I ordered one that I could tell had octopus and shrimp, but I like shrimp, so I thought I could sample the octopus and if I didn't care for it, I would eat the shrimp. In fact, I did. But the other one that I chose, which I thought was cheese and roasted pepper, also contained fish. I am not a fish person, except for fish and chips and some preparations of tilapia or Hawaiian fish like onu or opu. Kevin didn't care for his either. I'm a firm believer that you should try local specialties, and we did, but I guess pintxos are just not for us. (It wasn't just the pintxos in that particular bar, because I noticed the pintxos in other places appeared to be the same.)

We enjoyed our stroll through old town, which we found quite charming, and we actually had an early dinner there that was quite good. (I guess because it was in the tourist section, they served meals all day.) I had some tasty calamari, and Kevin savored his beef cheeks and mashed potatoes, and we shared a Greek salad. I did have one regret: We ate so much that I didn't have room to try another specialty--the Basque cheesecake. I'm sure I would have liked it much better than the pintxos!