France and Spain Trip: Day Two: Saint Emilion to San Sebastián (via Saint Jean de Luz)
We woke up and dilly dallied - as became the motto for this trip - before meeting our Airbnb host, Emeline, checking out of the Airbnb, and eating omelettes for breakfast at a restaurant in town.
We finally hit the road around noon and drove for hours, mastering the tolls as we went (it was tricky to figure out at first). We stopped in Saint Jean de Luz, wandered along the beach and also glimpsed a beautiful view of the river. I swam in the ocean for a while before we walked through the town, where I bought macarons and tried a quite disappointing crepe, while mom bought espadrilles and a beach blanket. Fascinated by all the options of espadrilles, she could have shopped for days.
Needing to hit the road again, we found our car and
finished the drive to San Sebastián (Saint Sebastián in French and Donostia in
Basque).
In San Sebastián, we waited for our Airbnb host to
come let us in (it was a company renting out the apartment, and I do wonder how
many locals struggle to find affordable housing in San Sebastián or if it’s
primarily a resort town anyway). This is something you constantly hear about
with Airbnb and since up to this point I’ve only rented rooms in people’s
houses, I really had no basis to judge this. In Saint Emilion, the Airbnb was
in the center of town but also seemed to mostly be in an area that attracted
tourists.
Apparently, even though I messaged the Airbnb app the
time of our arrival, he called my phone number to ask what time I was coming. I
didn’t answer because my phone was on airplane mode so it wouldn’t turn on my
Verizon Travelpass. It didn’t even occur to me that someone would try to call
me while I was on the trip (mistake #1).
The Airbnb was pretty nice, only a three minute walk
from La Concha Beach. We basically ditched the car the second we got to town,
leaving it in an underground parking garage and not coming back for it until it
was time to leave on Tuesday.
We freshened up, and I did some quick googling before
leading the way to the old town for a self-guided food crawl.
We found our way to Borda Berri, which the internet
had recommended for its risotto. And true to their word, the risotto made with
Idiazabal, or Basque sheep’s cheese, did not disappoint.
San Sebastián is known for its pintxos, which are
small bites or tapas. Also known as gastronomic delights. The idea is to go to
four or five pintxos bars in a night and try lots of different things to eat.
But we’re not particularly good at that, so the first night we made it to one
for food and one for dessert.
Part of the pintxos experience is muscling your way
through hoards of people to the bar where you order your pintxos and then you
stand at the bar or another area in the restaurant to eat. If you like to sit
and eat, pintxos might not be the place for you! At most pintxos bars, they
will give you a basket of bread to eat with your food, and I was always
surprised that the bartender could remember exactly what you had eaten when it
was time to tally up your bill.
At Borda Berri, we tried the risotto - the online
article praising it did not disappoint - squid ravioli soaked in its black ink
- okay with bread but not our favorite overall, cold tomato soup with goat
cheese which was a bit too flavorful for our likings, and finally the winner of
them all, beef cheeks. These were slow roasted for six hours in red wine and
tasted like a savory stew meat.
We also each had wine. Mom was disgusted by the local
specialty of Txacoli, which she thought tasted like vinegar. She traded that
off for regular white wine pretty quickly, but I kept drinking the Txacoli.
After Borda Berri, we headed to La Viña, where we
tried the cheesecake. Unlike American cheesecake, it was out on the shelf
instead of in a refrigerator. It was moist and airy and as we ate, we spoke to
the man next to us, a philosopher and historian from India, who had lived and
studied in California and Barcelona, and was now residing in Berlin. Shocked at
our short stay in San Sebastián, he told us how he made a trip there every
year.
When we finished the cheesecake, I had to wave my
money around in order to get the waiters to bill us, since they were so busy serving the crowds that flocked there for the cheesecake.
Sufficiently placed in food comas, we headed back to our Airbnb to slumber.
Sufficiently placed in food comas, we headed back to our Airbnb to slumber.
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