A lovely Continental
breakfast: fresh fruit, toasted baguette, croissants, serrano ham, cheese,
jams, honey, butter. Coffee con leche, hot teas.
Must get organized and ready
to have midday lunch with Miguel’s widow Asun, since her diagnosis of terminal
cancer, one of her children have been staying with her in Elizondo, currently daughter Ana is
over from Italy for a month. She is having chemo but only as a palliative care
arrangement as her cancer has already spread to major organs and systems.
Ana lives in the Genoa area
of Italy and her two children are away at college or have started their career.
Her husband is Mikela. Ana did all of the meal prep and was proud to share the
Italian recipes:
Entremesas of various meat cold cuts, sliced
cheese, asparagus/mayonnaise, bread, etc…
Typical veggie tarta ground green beans,
onions, leeks, kale, etc. salt all packed inside a simple flour crust similar
to a quiche.
Main entrée was hamburger meat into which she
has added cooked pumpkin and basically shaped it into a meatloaf rectangular
tube of meat bordered with home fried potatoes. Really delicious!!! The pumpkin
caused the meat to be a lighter pink hue versus normal hamburger meat darkish
brown.
For dessert she made a simply pie crust with
raspberry jamfilling sprinkled brown
sugar/honey crumbles on top.
Asun was in great spirits
and appreciated our visit and considering the seriousness of her illness looked
really well! We sat and talked for ages and finally, Dave & Joyce departed
ways and took off to Bilbao airport to stay overnight for their early Friday AM
flight to Gatwick from Bilbao. We did not want to overtire Asun so we left too.
Jane and Paul had a late
afternoon siesta before a light meal at the Posada. Friday will be the 1st
of day of fiestas in the valley and huge crowds are expected. The first day’s
event is marked by animal market for horses, sheep, and cows; farm machinery.
Parking will be impossible!
Tomorrow we go to visit
Nekane and Fernando and the children in Pamplona. We are excited to give them all the toys we
brought for them!
We love this beautiful
valley and love coming back here!
We
sat in the huge bay window of the Hotel Niza and we watched the morning walkers
along along the brick pavement above La Concha beach and the San Sebastian
harbor. There were gentle clouds, partly sunny and a light breeze and but already
it is already 67F.
Our luggage is packed ready
for the journey to -3 level parking to load up for the short drive to Elizondo.
Getting up and out of the garage is a lot easier than entering and finding a
parking slot with very tight turns necessary between each level. A smaller car
would have been much easier on the nerves. But daylight was eventually found,
and we began our journey that we did many times when we were in our 20s.
The traffic patterns in the
SanSeb have changed dramatically!! We had to go deep into the city in order to
exit. Jane thought she had left something back at the hotel and so Paul had to
find a pull over slot so we could double check the suitcases. Issue solved,
nothing left back the hotel -- continue ON!! The drive to Elizondo is a little
different now than then. They have taken out a lot of tight turns and put
tunnels through some of the hills. There is a lot of truck traffic so I guess it
is better, It is still very beautiful, green and mountainous. Sigh… I love it!
We arranged to meet the
Murrays at the Pamplona turn off restaurant we knew from years past, at two for
lunch.
Menu of the day was great as
usual.Afterwards we drove to the Elizondo cemetery to leave flowers at
Miguel Mendi’s grave….hard to believe he died nearly 10 years ago (1933-2004 on
January 6th.) We always stop by to have a chat with him! We talked to a chap
there who was interested to know that Los Americanos had come back! Turns out
his Mother had worked at the Gorramendi base as a server but it must have been
on the Spanish side as the guys had no women serving them!
We checked in at the Posada
and Belen hauled my suitcases up two sets of steps to access our room! The
rooms are basic but comfortable. Siesta time and time to work on the blog
before we join the Murrays at supper 8:30PM in the Posada. Ensalada Mixta,
croquettes, serrano ham/cheese, bread, and drinkies. Something nice and light
for the evening intake. This constant eating is really getting to me!
Off to sleep at 1000. Cannot
believe it. Still recovering from the journey over I guess!
Woke up to another lovely
day at Hotel Niza on the beach of La Concha we had a late breakfast of juice,
coffee and toast with ham & cheese. Dave and Joyce are coming here to meet
us.
After hugs and kisses galore
we sat and chatted. While chatting with the Murray’s along comes this handsome
man speaking English and asking if we could him directions to the hotel’s
restrooms. Without cracking a smile it was Fernado (Nekane’s husband) pulling
off a grand surprise that they come to San Seb just to surprise us on our
trip!! What a surprise! They are all laughing their fool heads off!
Nekane had the newborn with
her. He is such a cutie but so so tiny, Iñigo. Both parents are still on
Spanish authorized maternity leave and so they have booked lunch at the Basque
chef’s school and to surprise everyone in San Sebastian at the same time.
After they left we decided to go to the old
town for lunch! We walked along the beach front and finally stopped for
refreshment on the Boulevard. Next, we donned jackets as the sun went into
hiding and winds picked up noticeably.
We went in search of a place
in the old town for lunch. After two spots were closed on Tuesday’s we found
the old standby at the Lomo Bar as we used to call it! It was regular spot when
we used to take newly arrived GIs when we would introduce them to Spanish wine
and pintxos! They invited us in immediately and gave us the last available table.
The place was packed!
Food was fabulous, little
lamb chops, pork chops and all that goes with. After our two hour lunch it was
time to retrace our steps back to the Hotel Niza and the Murrays to their car
park for the drive back to Elizondo for the night. Jane & Paul will join
them in Elizondo tomorrow night.
At the hotel, Paul asked for
a tortilla Francesca with cheese which is not on the menu but the waitress
asked the cook/chef…..sure why not, however the cheese was just lying on the plate
and not inside the tortilla!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Early to bed tonight for a
change.
We really have let this blog
get away from us!. Trying desperately to catch up! We seem to be dashing all
over meeting people, eating etc. It has not been as relaxing as we anticipated!
G
M
T
Y
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