Screw you Covid, Lockeys on Holiday are back in business.
Following the late cancellation of our October trip to Madrid we hastily rescheduled our flights to enable us to make a week long trip to Bilbao and San Sebastian. Easyjet's policy of 'free' rebooking right up until the last moment has been a godsend, though we will be skint by the end of this year trying to fund all the travels we are squeezing in.
Anyway, enough of the bluster. Let's look at some of the amazing things we managed to squeeze in during our latest trip.
The city is also home of the pintxo, a small mouthful of food you consume alongside your drink. Drinking is a big part of Basque culture, not in the overconsumption and partying way of the Brits, but certainly it seems like the whole of Bilbao enjoys a glass of wine, either rioja for the reds or the local txakoli for the whites, alternatively a local cider, served in small measures and very appley and sour or like the rest of Spain a small glass of beer. Don't think you have to eat pintxos exclusively though, the locals might have one or two before dinner, though they might also just keep going and have a few instead of their lunch or dinner. The whole thing is very relaxed so don't get hung up on the rules. Just remember to ask what the specialities of the house are so that you get to sample their finest offerings.
San Sebastian
However we arrived in February. The temperatures were mostly low double figures, we were lucky that it stayed dry and a couple of days it reached 17 degrees Celsius. Does that mean we think it's a Spring and Summer place? Certainly not. The food culture here is huge, again pinxtos are a big part of this but fine dining is also a big deal. We ate some of the nicest things here as you might see in the slideshows. We were over the river in the Gros district, 10 minutes from the old town, but in all honesty we think we landed on our feet.
All around our apartment were fabulous places to eat. The amazing black pudding volcanoes of Hidalgo 53 were a favourite but there were so many amazing pinxtos on offer we literally ate like kings.
Sid and I were also lucky enough to get tickets for Real Sociedad to watch a Europa League game, a bucket list item ticked off for us both to get to a European game.