I like to travel and I like to eat.  And over the years, people have told me that I do both of these things pretty well.  If you like these activities or know anyone who does, I hope you’ll read this blog and recommend it to others.

The most recent travel & food extravaganza was a 9-day trip to the Basque country in Northern Spain and then a few days in Venice.  Oh, and did I mention we went to France for lunch!

We started in Bilbao.  It required a plane switch in Madrid  since there are no direct flights from NYC to Bilbao but otherwise a relatively easy trip.

Bilbao landed on the tourist destination map in 1997 with the opening of  the Frank Gehry designed Guggenheim Museum.

In my opinion, the building surpasses expectations.  I tend to be a fan of the Gehry style and one of my favorite under-the-radar Gehry buildings is the Weisman Art Museum perched on the banks of the Mississippi River on the campus of the University of Minnesota.  That museum opened four years prior to the one in Bilbao and it definitely was a precursor of what was to come.

The first visual encounter with the Bilbao museum is the giant Jeff Koons Puppy sculpture outside on the plaza.

I remember first encountering that sculpture when it was temporarily installed in NYC at Rockefeller Center in the same location where the iconic Christmas tree goes every season.  It’s a giant (40 feet high) West Highland White Terrier sculpture covered with living flowers in many different colors.  The Basque climate is perfect to allow everything to be in bloom year round.  Inside the museum there was an entire Jeff Koons retrospective exhibit and also a Basquiat exhibit but the highlight was Richard Serra’s “The Matter of Time” installation in the museum’s largest gallery.  It consists of nine enormous steel sculptures that can be viewed as a whole from a balcony above the exhibit or viewed from below by walking in, around, & through each sculpture.  It is definitely one of the best large scale exhibits I’ve ever experienced.

The hotel we stayed in was the Hotel Milano and even though it was right across the street from the museum, I wouldn’t recommend it.  The rooms felt really small (even by European standards) and if I were to go back, I’d stay down the street at the Silken Gran Hotel Domine which has a great rooftop bar & restaurant that overlooks the museum.

Our first meal in Spain was a traditional pintxos meal at El Globo.  Consisting of basically really really good bar snacks, we just stood around and pointed at things and drank glasses of the local Txakoli white wine.  Each one was excellent and we stuffed ourselves and were shocked when the bill only came to 15€ (about $17).  The place was packed and chaotic so either the server lost count or else everything was really cheap (or both).  It was all excellent and fresh and my favorite was the Iberian ham that Spain is known for.

Dinner that night was at Nido Bilbao where, amongst other things, we had a traditional Basque “Txuleton” or T-bone steak.  It was a huge piece of meat, served with the bone but with the meat sliced off of it for easy eating (like they do at Peter Luger).  In Spain in general they serve their meat very rare and not well trimmed of fat.  Eating as much good steak as I do in NYC, leaving all of the fat made it difficult to eat and it was definitely too rare for me and the others.  The meat itself with great but it took some work.

Our first gin & tonic in Spain was the next night on the rooftop bar of the beautiful Azkuna Zentroa building.  The building itself is a cultural and entertainment space that is definitely worth a visit on its own but even better when followed with a drink upstairs.

On my first trip to Spain a few years ago, the revelation was the discovery of the way they serve gin & tonics.  Always served in a large red wine-type goblet, they fill it with ice and then some juniper berries and cucumber slices, and then pour in gin until you tell them to stop and only then do they add some tonic.  Sometimes they add mint as well.  It’s like drinking summer in a glass.  And on the open-air rooftop overlooking the old city of Bilbao, it felt like the embodiment of Spain.

The rest of the time (another two days) in Bilbao was spent taking long walks, eating lots of pintxos, and enjoying the city.  Coincidentally, our time in Bilbao corresponded with their annual Aste Nagusia Festival.  Every night there was a giant street party on either side of the Nervion River culminating with an enormous fireworks display that could be seen from every location.  Each night we’d come out of our late dinner (which usually started at 9pm and ended after 11pm) and would stand on the street and watch the fireworks.  Our best dinner in Bilbao was right on the river at Atea Restaurant which had great food and an even better fireworks view.

On a side note, five years ago Martin & I went with some friends to the Burgundy wine country in France.  We each bought a special bottle of wine in Mersault that we were told would age well and we agreed amongst each other to keep those bottles in a cool dark place and to drink those bottles together five years later in Europe.  Well, time flew by and here we were five years later so we packed our bottles in our suitcases.  We drank the first one (a red 2008 Pommard) on a bench in the Dona Casilda Iturrizar Park behind the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum.  It was a gorgeous afternoon in a beautiful park with my husband and a good friend and it was a wonderful chance to reflect on the last five years and all that’s happened (including getting married).

On Sunday morning we took an hour and a half bus ride to San Sebastian through the very pretty Basque countryside.  Our hotel in San Sebastian – the Astoria 7 – was around the corner from the bus station so it was a quick walk that took under 5 minutes.  This was a great hotel that I would definitely stay at again.  Big rooms and a great lounge area and also right near several of the city’s major bus lines for ease in getting around.  Only complaint – weak wifi signal in the room.

San Sebastian is a wonderful city and even though we saw and ate a lot in three days, I could have stayed longer.  Besides its physical beauty and Basque culture, it is also known for having the most Michelin starred restaurants of any city in the world.

Having just been in Rio de Janeiro over New Year’s Eve earlier this year, I can understand why people sometimes call San Sebastian “Little Rio”.  It’s got two wide crescent beaches on either side of a green promontory and it’s got some big hills (not really mountains) that ring the city.  One of the beaches (Zurriola Beach) is filled with surfers since it has naturally occurring wave breaks and the other beach (Concha Beach) is calm.

Like Bilbao (and most European cities), San Sebastian has an old city full of small winding streets and beautiful buildings.  We did a several hour bike ride one day to get a sense of the city and get our bearings.  Martin especially loved it when we got to stop at the local soccer stadium.  The food in San Sebastian definitely lived up to its reputation.  We did manage to get a reservation at one of their Michelin three star restaurants, Arzak, which many foodies consider one of the top 10 restaurants in the world.  It was an incredible 4+ hour dinner filled with interesting and delicious items as well as a personal tour of the kitchen by chef Elena Arzak.

Here’s a look at the menu:

As good as it was, I have to say that our highlight dinner was at La Muralla.  We discovered it sort of by accident just wandering around the old city.  We were getting a little tired of standing up and eating pintxos and were looking for more of a sit-down order-off-the-menu experience and found this place.  The streets of the old city are fun and crowded and noisy and then you go through the doors of La Muralla and everything is white and calm and serene.  And they have two different tasting menus – one for 25 euro and one for 31 euro – which both include unlimited good Basque wine.  This has to be one of the best values of anywhere I’ve ever eaten.  This was truly a find and didn’t feel too touristy

The other highlight in San Sebastian (among many) was the La Perla spa.  Built in 1912, it sits right on La Concha Beach so during your time at the spa you can just wander out to the beach and take a swim and then come back in.  The space has seven different areas that include thermal pools, waterfalls, a Jacuzzi, wet & dry saunas, etc.  All of them are filled with saltwater.  One of the largest pools has a series of stations where the water jets are placed at different spots so depending upon which station you stand at, the jets massage your calves, glutes, abs, back, shoulders, etc.  And another pool has exercise equipment – bike, treadmill, pulleys – all submerged under water so you have the extra resistance and comfort of doing these things in the water.  I haven’t seen anything like that even at Canyon Ranch.

On our last day in San Sebastian, we checked out of our hotel early and our flight to Venice from Bilbao Airport wasn’t until 7pm so we had the whole day free and rented a car and went to France for lunch.  I love typing that sentence!

It’s a beautiful drive along the coast from San Sebastian to Saint Jean du Luz and takes about an hour going the scenic route.  The area was full of hikers taking long walks along the trails that run along the water and up into the hills.  We passed a very pretty little beach town called Hendaye and then stopped in Saint Jean du Luz.  I’m sure the town has lots of history but it seems to mostly be known for the setting of the marriage of the King of France with the Infitada of Spain  and we went into the church where the wedding took place and it was just beautiful.

We drank our second bottle of our French wine (a delicious 2008 Mersault) from five years ago at lunch in Saint Jean du Luz.  Martin used his French language skills to ask the waiter if we could bring in a bottle of wine from outside.  I ordered duck confit in keeping with the French theme.We wandered around for a few hours after lunch so we could walk off the wine and then drove to the Bilbao Airport.

Next stop — Venice!