Interruption to services is temporary

Good morning all.
It's 06:30 on Monday 26th and we're packing to leave for the base of the High Atlas mountains.
All my plans to keep the blog updated daily have gone out the window.
The days, although not high kilometer day are tiring and once out of the saddle there is much site seeing to do.
It seems that we do not get back to our rooms, after dinner, until 22:30 - 23:00 and by then the necessity to sleep takes over.
Pictures are being taken, as are videos, so please be patient and I'll try again tonight.

Take care and be grateful you won't be worrying about dodging donkeys as you drive about today!
  

Malaga, before getting back on the saddle

After checking in we went to our room to be greeted by two single beds.
Back we went to reception to ask if it were possible to have a double bed room.
"Oh, you want a double bed! You will have to wait for us to make one for you. It will take about one hour." was the smile-less young receptionist retort.
As we sat there for over two hours, and no-one bothering to say a thing, I pondered if we had finally found THE place Spain that not only were not able to smile but also didn't understand what service means.
It wasn't only us tome and hat they treated with utter indifference,
The few travel forums I subscribe to will get an entry about this place
In the afternoon we caught the train into Malaga Central.
It's a much bigger place than I imagined. We walked around what I imagine is the central shopping area, similiar to our Bourke Street / Swanston Street etc. etc.
The noticeable and expected differences between Malaga and Melbourne, in my view, is that the locals dress up (which doesn't necessarily mean putting on more clothes, and notably it means less, often), every age and level of infirmity (loads of wheelchair bound old folk being pushed around) and they come out late and stay out until very late.

As we know that this night was going to be the last opportunity for a good sleep in we headed of home ~6pm.
When we got off the train at Plaza Mayor (be careful as some of the pics have nothing to do with Plaza Mayor Malaga!) we saw so many little decent looking restaurants among the insidious Macca's, Burger Kings, local of Pizza Hut etc. etc.
One had a choice of a "seafood fry up" or a "mixed meats" plate with a bottle of wine.
Here's what we chose -

It's much much bigger than it looks in this picture!

It had baby octopus, white bait, salmon, prawns with a very tasty dipping sauce. That, plus a house salad (we needed something with vegetables!) and a bottle and a half of wine was probably twice as much as we should have had.

Being a big believer in universal balance I knew that something that I enjoyed to that extent must have price to pay.

And it did! At about 3am I woke up with a case of heartburn that would have justified someone doing a thesis on. That's it NO MORE FRIED FISH OR RED WINE, EVER! At least not until next time.

We had breakfast at the hotel. Breakfast was actually what Tiz had - yogurt and muesli.

I had a vegetable omelette and  cured salmon. Yes I know what you're thinking but that salmon was just too good not to eat, even if it was only 10am.

Breakfast, which included enough coffee to send a harden Turk into the shakes, we went west along the beach.  

I'm sure I've seen this place referred to as the Gold Coast of Spain.

As you walk along the beach this is what you see for km after km.

On the left is a completely enclosed hotel resort full of what I think were Germans.

All sitting facing the pool with the odd well placed tanned guapo doing aerobics to really bad house disco.  

Mmmmmm ....... nice!

To the right were dozens of chiringuito.

It's supposed to be a beach bar but looks like a place you walk through and pay for one of many neatly arranged banana lounges on the beach and then proceed to pay handsomely for drink which are brought to by a ...... you guessed .... a guapo (a handsome tanned young Spanish boy!).

This appears to be a very popular thing to do by many women, most of which, from what I saw/heard, had English accents.

"Nos encantan las damas inglesas, aquí en España!"

PETROL HEAD ALERT!

Whilst walking I saw something that is butt fugly even with the steering wheel on the left side.

BMW do NOT get everything right as is proven by the abomination known as the X6.

Wrong, wrong, wrong!

We also saw this interesting Honda - 

I have no idea if it was a standard bike but it looked like it had been motarded with some K(ost) T(oo) M(uch) bits, from my quick look.

As we crossed the beach to go to our apartment we were confronted with a golf sign that I, as a motorcycle rider, understood only too well - 

 I know what this sign means, as the last time I had balls go over me they were followed by a very large motorcycle and I spent over two months in hospital!

* Beware - Golf is a dangerous game *

Later in the afternoon we went to have a look at the bike, which turned out to have an interesting but delightful twist, and get fitted with our gear. All went exceptionally well and tonight we meet up to discuss the week ahead.

We're both looking forward to the week ahead so much it's hard to describe. 40 years of waiting will do that I guess and as we're heading off quite early in the morning I don't know when I'll report back, but I'll try as best I can.

Keep well and take care, the lot of you.

   

San Sebastian - Donostia to Málaga

Last nights visit to Bar La Cepa was everything we hoped and a whole lot more.

We headed out at Spanish dinner time, 9pm.
As we wandered in we weren't quite sure how to go about ordering but standing at the bar always seems to be a good way to sort that problem out.
Sure enough, the young bloke not only understood the opening order "Dos vinos, lanyos (that's my interpretation of what was said but I never did find out what 'lanyos' meant)", which got us two quite nice glasses of cold red wine, but also spoke very good English.
I continued to order in Spanglish and he kept answering in English. It worked out well.
This was yet another bar with mountains of desirable pintxos covering the counter but it also had an exposed kitchen which allowed us to see specifically ordered dishes being brought to the tables.
To make things even more difficult there was the "specials" blackboard with at least 50 items.

Thankfully, after placing the food order, the daughter of the owner suggested making some of the dishes only half serves.
Here's a few shots of pintxos heaven, and what it cost -

One of the guapo locals at Bar La Cepa

The kitchen where God surely orders his take-aways

That local guapo and his gorgeous chica 

The dessert closest to the guapo was a custard and almond delight and the other one, which was the "daughter of the owner"s recommendation was a lighter than air cheesecake with berry sauce.
She saw me smiling and asked why.
I told her I felt like I was eating a dish that God had ordered for himself.
She laughed.
I had been serious. 

That local guy, again!

The bill.
Extraordinary value for such exquisite food and drink.

The alarm went off at 04:30 although both of us had been awake for a while. Expectation of an unpleasant waking hour seems to do that.

We showered, answered the door and apologized to a neighbour complaining about our loud radio at "...cinquo de mattina!", drank our Nescafe, finished packing our few final things and headed off into the crisp morning.

Thirty minutes later, as expected, we arrived at the bus terminus.

There were about 20 people aboard this huge and comfortable bus, which left at 06:00am precisely.

We arrived at Loiu Airport in Bilbao 70 minutes later.

I'm glad we did the trip by bus to Bilbao as it gave us a great view of this northern part of Spain.

It doesn't seem to matter how much land is available they all seem to live in multi storey clusters.

The flight to Málaga was another 90 minutes and again without incident.

We're now at the Parador Malaga de Golf, a golf resort hotel. For the very first time during our time in Spain we have encountered insipid and unhelpful staff.

Maybe they have had a brace of golfers that have shot way over par go through this morning and they've just had enough. Who knows?!

 

  

      

Guapos, chicas and the climb to Jesus

This entry starts off on the afternoon of Wednesday 20th.

Again , we went to La Bretxa market but this time the stalls were open.
So much delectable food ..... decisions, decisions.
We settled on some very fresh salmon steaks, cut from the carcass of course, a bunch of  tomatoes and a packet of whitloaf lettuce. A fresh bread stick, goes without saying.
On the way home we dropped into the grocery/bottle shop to make sure we had wine to wash down what was going to be another fine home cooked meal.
As we wandered around Tiz found this little-ish room out the back with some top shelf wines.
In we went and after a real good look we found a large casket on the floor with only two types of wine in it.
A white and a rosé, neither with a price.
"That's it, the rosado fits in with what we're eating tonight so that's what we're having." I declared.
Tiz, the sensible one of this partnership says "But what if it's really expensive?"
As I head off to the counter I reply "It can't be that dear. It's a rosé!"
It was €2.60.
The sometimes prophetic words of Mike TC (No good wine cost less than $30!) are ringing in my ears.
It's a punt and I am prepared to send it where that other bottle of wine from our friend Apu, in Barcelona, went - down the drain - rather than put it back on the shelf and choose another.

Long story short, it wasn't a bad drop and it was just fine with our salmon steaks, another potato tortilla and an excellent salad.

We decided to go for a walk along the seawall and catch the sunset.
By the time we got there, ~9pm and ~30 minutes before the sun sank into the horizon, a lot of San Sebastian were already there.
Roller bladders, guapos dry humping their little chicas, groups of friends munching through mountains of dry pumpkin seeds and swilling San Miguels, buff guys taking their American pitbulls for a drag, and so many more.
We took a load of pictures with our phones but not one would do the blood red sun settling into the sea for the evening any justice.

As we walked home we decided that as the next day was to be our final day in this idyllic little town we would accomplish something cathartic and meaningful.
We would climb to Jesus!
 ....who in this case sits atop an old fort that is only 123m above sea level on Monte Urgull.
It would be like Camino de Santiago, but without the long distance or the hardship or the communal bedding or the supposed camaraderie or the peasant food or the religious fervour.
Yeah, just like Camino de Santiago, but not.

It's only 2kms but it felt like a vertical climb. I've included some pics just to remind myself never to do something like this again, unless there's a motorbike or a helicopter involved.

Proof that we both made it!

Tiz, with Donostia at her back

Jesus whispered in my ear
"Bless you Marino, even though you are not too bright.
as is evident by the fact that you took the longest path up here." 

   After enjoying the spectacular views and waiting for my pulse to drop below 190 it was time head home for a feed, a drink and some writing.
We had to stop off at THE shop, the one with bread and beer and food and fruit, to get bread.
As I entered I thought to myself "I can't remember what that Cannabia hemp beer was like so I'll get some more!"   As it turns out it's quite good and although I have no idea what cannabis taste like all I could taste was a nice light hop beer. So nice in fact that Tiz, who dislikes beer in general found it "Nice." too

      These Spaniards stock everything in these wonderful little shops including

I think they pay you €1.45 to take one away!
 

Me, trying to fit in as a local by carrying a breadstick around with me
 ...... and a very small person jumping up to take a bite from it

Tonight is our last night here in San Sebastian - Donostia so we're going to the old town for a feed at La Cepa.
It's been a family business since 1948 and the son and current owner want it to stay the way it was when it opened, plus the food on the bar looked terrific when we walked past it earlier on today!

OK, we're off for walk now to a part of town we haven't explored yet.

Next post will be (my) tomorrow from Malaga.

Mañana amigos.

Donostia Weather Forecast for this morning - Rain

Meh! They'll be as correct as every other weather bureau.
Looking out the window gave us a far better idea of what it was going to be like - not bad.
As we will need to catch a bus from Donostia ......

Info Break - Yes, I know I have already prattled on about  Catalan/Castilian and Euskara but I forgot to tell you about the dual names of this fair town.
San Sebastian, is in "Spanish" and it obviously refers to saint called Sebastian.
So where do they get Donostia from? Ostia, the port suburb of Rome, in Italy, is where Sebastian died.
They added the Don, which means saint, and they came up with Don'ostia.
Try and slot that into your next boring dinner party conversation. Your co-dinners will think you the most interesting font of useless knowledge or a poor fool that can't come up with anything better to converse about. Either way, you will be remembered.

........ to Bilbao, at 6am on Thursday morning, with no public transport, including taxis, from our apartment to the bus terminus, we will need to walk the 2.2kms.
How long does it take to walk 2.2kms? It takes ~30 minutes.
It will be an very early rise on Thursday morning but a good 30 minute walk before a 90 minute bus ride to Bilbao and then a 2 hour flight to Malaga will do us good, and ensure we get a sleep on both forms of transport.
On the way back from the bus terminus we thought we would walk to a few of the spots we saw on our bus tour yesterday.    

Here's Tiz in front of what is the town hall.
It used be a casino but some killjoy from the 1920's put an end to it as a place where the rich and beautiful came to lose their money.
I think I heard the tour guide say the trees you see were tamarind trees.
If she was talking in Euskara, she could have been saying anything!

You can't see the sky from the picture above but it was looking very dark and carried a lot of lightning. 

We decided to head down to the market and buy some bits 'n' pieces for lunch.

We got there just as they were closing for their 2:30pm to 4:30pm siesta.

I think there's a god somewhere that wants us to leave San Sebastian without having shopped at this market!

Lidl it is. We walked out of there with 

 all for ~€14

It made a very nice lunch indeed.

It's time for non-petrol heads to tune out and look forward to my next posting.

On the way home I had an interesting find.

We may think of this vehicle as a Chrysler 300C, but here it's a Lancia Thema.

It's the only one I've seen. 

Valiant Voyager Bang Bus (aka Chrysler Voyager, to some) on the other hand, are quite common amongst Spaniards with good taste in vehicles.

Paella is not common in the north of Spain and would be unduly and unreasonably expensive if eaten at a place with a beach view. We won't be eating paella here tonight.

Also, Spanish guys are big piercings. It doesn't seem to matter where. 

Ears, lips, cheeks, eyebrows, nose, wrists are all on the list.

Punch a hole in it and stick something through it. Muy bueno.

Spanish girls like to get their puppies out. 

Hot, cold, windy, no problems.

Get those puppies out for a show and a walk. Also muy bueno.

I'm sure it's even better in summer.    

A night in

We did a bus tour today, which didn't take all that long, partly because Donostia is small and partly because the road to part of the tour is closed for repairs.
What we did see, nonetheless, was nice.
A lot of this place is on reclaimed land, and from not so long ago.
They've done very well.

After walking down to the PESA (THE big bus line in Spain) office and buying our ticket to Bilbao, where we get our flight to Malaga on Thursday morning, we thought we'd do a little shopping and make ourselves some dinner at the apartment.
We knew about La Bretxa Market so off we went to stock up on local goodies.
All the stalls were closed, as it was some patron saints' holidays.
Damn, my plans of hedonism and gluttony are foiled once again by Christian rituals.

The saving grace to our disappointment was the Lidl (which we in Australia know as Aldi) supermarket.
I kid you not! The Basque version of this "low end" supermarket is best described as a David Jones or Leo's supermarket that has gone even more upmarket. It was amazing.
Even though the food there was top notch we thought we would support some of the smaller local groceries.
Two bread sticks from a little bakery, served with a smile, for €2.40.
A jar of precooked potatoes marinated in oil, for making tortillas de patatas, and a jar of tuna, in oil, along with a bag of biscuits for €7.
A bottle of cider, small bottle of hemp beer (....... because I could, but have yet to drink) and a jar of olives for €3

All you need for a yummy local produce meal

Tiz cooked up the potatoes and tuna, I poked (yes/no we didn't have a corkscrew!!) the cork into the bottle of cider, I prepared (taking it out of the bag constitutes preparation) the bread.

The Rosanna style, with Basque ingredients, tortilla (which is not the one that we know, obviously) was excellent. The cider is an acquired taste but was drunk with vigour, regardless.

The hemp beer will wait until I am game. I don't expect it to be all that good, insofar as beers go, but I will try it for the sake of all you readers that may one day come here and wonder if it's drinkable. Report to follow.

A coffee, a few biscuits and a few shows that "fall from the ether" at 14Mb/sec and we were off to bed.

Yes, that's fourteen NOT one point four!

That's available day and night, anywhere including little sleepy town, and for low, low rates.

Abbott and Turnbull will have a lot to answer for if they can't match this sort of service/cost with their hybridised  mish-mash, which we know they won't.     

The night gave us a lightening storm and rain that made sleep intermittent.

Morning is now here and although it's only 20 degrees its dry and we're about to head out.

Wandering around and learning about Basque, pintxos y vino y cerveza

Today's weather wasn't quite as pleasant as yesterday but all that means is that we walk a little longer and a little faster to keep warm.

As we walked about it was becoming evident that all the signs were written in two languages. A bit of research reveals what I guess I should have known before we came here.
This north eastern part of Spain speaks and is sign posted in Catalan Spanish, which is the common language throughout Spain, and Euskara, which is the Basque language.
What I found fascinating about Euskara is that it is so old that linguists cannot definitively tell us of its origins although they believe it dates back to the Stone Age and know it is isolated from any every other language.

This bi-lingual approach can, and does, really confuse a lot of us visitors.

Where do you think you're going?

Looking at the sign above I thought that Donostia was suburb of San Sebastian or maybe another part of it or ....... whatever, BUT not the same place.

Methinks the local Basques take great delight in watching the foreigners confusion and are simultaneously annoyed by their ignorance.

Overall I have found them to be less able/willing to speak "non-Spanish" but it doesn't detract from their helpfulness. 

Anyway, it's not hard to ask for "Un vino tinto, una cerveza y dos placas, por favor."

Load up the plates with pintxos o bocadillos y "stuff ", wash it all down with vino o/y cerveza and everyone's happy.

We have found that booze is cheap but food, not quite so much.

A wine or beer is less than €2 and yet a mouthful, albeit gorgeous and then delicious, will set you back €3-4.

As you can imagine, this leads to people drinking more than they eat, and that's not a bad thing because the vino y cerveza around this part of the world is muy buena.

Trying to get educated about which are the better places to get a drink and pintxos is far more difficult than actually just setting out and trying them. 

Everyone on the interwebz has an opinion and we've found most of them to be less than helpful.

"Take a local friend with you." Sure, 'cos everyone has "a local friend" at their disposal. The locals at the bar help you anyway.

"Don't eat what's on the bar. Eat what's written on the blackboard." What?!

"Take a tapas bar tour." I would but I can bar hop without paying someone to lead me.

etc. etc.

We tried a few that looked good from the street and had locals eating there. Simple and effective.

We've not been disappointed.

We tried the Bar Bergara last night, mainly because it is close, and it was very, very good.

We've also tried a few in the "old city" using the "the mountain of choices on the bar look good and there's heaps of locals in there" method and have walked away happy every time.

We've only been here one and half days and have two days left so I think we'll continue our research as best we can and report on our findings.