Local Summertime Adventures, Part 1

While we’ve been fortunate to travel a lot this summer, we also have gotten to kick back in San Sebastian. It is nice to enjoy the good weather (finally!) and local scene without having to get up early for school or do homework.

When we returned from Bologna, Jazzaldia – SS’s jazz festival – was happening. What makes this event unique is that in addition to high wattage names like Chick Corea and Mary Stallings, whose concerts require tickets, two-thirds of the concerts are FREE and held at numerous outdoor venues. I went to see Gregory Porter singing Nat King Cole’s songbook and he was amazing. Afterward I joined Jeff and two Thai friends from school and their Spanish/Basque husbands at the beach-side stage:

The next night, after taking in more music near the beach, we had a truly “international” dinner with friends. Here we are, 2 Japanese, 2 Spanish/Basque, 1 Russian, 1 Thai, and the 2 Americans at a typical Basque restaurant:

With the arrival of August we welcomed more visitors – my “oldest” friend Debbie and her daughter Zoe came and stayed with us for 5 nights. Again, it was truly our pleasure to show them around the Basque country, including Biarritz:

We went to Bilbao, where Zoe really loved the exhibits at the Guggenheim. Seriously, I’ve never seen a 10 year old so engaged at a museum. We did our favorite hike along the coastline, went to the beach, and took them to the best pintxos bars and restaurants in town. (In case you missed it, Lonely Planet’s Ultimate Eats recently named San Sebastian’s pintxos the best food experience in the world.  https://www.foodandwine.com/news/pintxos-san-sebastian) Zoe was so fond of the duck bao at one place, she insisted we return for more!

So, if you want your personalized tour of the best food experience in the world, you know where to find us.

Hasta luego,

Shana & Jeff

Bordeaux

We took a quick, 3-day trip to check out Bordeaux, France. Bordeaux is a very pretty city that resembles a mini-Paris. In the distant past, it was a walled city, but now only a couple of former city gates remain. Porte Caihau (1494) is perhaps the most impressive:

Interestingly, Bordeaux, and the rest of southwestern France was ruled by England for three centuries during the middle ages (basically 1150-1450). The ruler of the area was Eleanor of Aquitaine. She first married the King of France, Louis VII, but after 15 years of marriage had failed to produce a male heir (as expected for the time, their two daughters were irrelevant), the marriage was annulled and Eleanor subsequently married the Duke of Normandy, who would become King Henry II of England in 1154, making all of her lands part of England.

One of Bordeaux's main tourist attractions is the Miroir d'Eau (Water Mirror, 2006), which sits opposite the Place Royale (1775). Definitely a confluence of old and new! The water mirror changes from having about 1 inch of water, creating the mirror effect, to a mist effect every few minutes. Both are really cool, but only the former provides amazing night views like this:

Even during the day, the water mirror is really impressive as it is the largest in the world:

We did not get a good picture of the mist effect, but it is really neat with a shroud of mist covering such a large area up to about two feet off the ground. And, as you can see, there is nothing to stop you from strolling through it. The number of people walking through and enjoying this water feature at all hours is incredible.

Bordeaux also contains one of the largest public squares in Europe, Place des Quinconces, measuring about 31 acres or the size of 23.5 football fields. In the square is a series of statues dedicated to the Girondists who fell victim to the Reign of Terror during the French Revolution. The Girondists were against the Monarchy, but were later purged by their "partners" the Montagnards, which marked the beginning of the Reign of Terror. The local soccer team is named for them -- FC Girondins de Bordeaux.

So, Bordeaux the city was great, but really we were there for the wine. Bordeaux is one of the main wine regions of France and is made up of about 30 areas (or appellations). We took a tour that took us to a couple of these appellations, primarily Saint Emilion, which is a beautiful, little town that is now a center for wine tourism:

Fewer than 200 people actually live in the city, and practically every store is either a restaurant or a wine bar. 

We learned a lot on this wine tour because wine production in France is very different than in the US. Oh, the process of making wine is basically the same, but we learned that in France there are an incredible number of rules for each area that have to be followed in order to put the appellation name on the label (everything from the type of grape, to the height and spacing of vines, and about 100 other things). In addition, each winery basically produces two wines: their primary wine and a secondary wine, using essentially the same grapes (mostly merlot and cabernet franc in Saint Emilion). Other appellations in Bordeaux have a similarly long list of rules. For those of us who know a bit about wines in California and Washington, this was particularly strange.

Finally, we very much enjoyed the food in Bordeaux. With the help of a local's suggestions that Shana found online we went to three wonderful dinners at very good, but  non-pretentious restaurants. Most memorable, was dinner on our final night where we ate on the restaurant's patio, which was against the outside wall of the Church of Saint Pierre (14th/15th C). Very cool!

We hope to return to Bordeaux for more wine tours and French food in the near future.

Adieu,

Jeff and Shana

Wrapping Up Italy - with a Fork and Knife

We’ve been back from Italy for more than 3 weeks and this will be the last post on Italy . . . until we return there in late September/early October. We’ve covered our various day trips: Verona, Modena, Ravenna, Ferrara, and Florence, all of which were terrific. But we don't think we have done justice to Bologna or to the Italian food experience.

Shana’s parents always said that if they had to choose their favorite food, or a last meal, it would be Italian. And who can argue with that? Not us after 2 weeks enjoying all that the Bologna region has to offer. Because we can’t get high quality “ethnic” cuisine in San Sebastian, we often will try to find good international food when we are traveling. But there was no way we were venturing away from Italian food while in Italy. At times Jeff thought he might be getting tired of it, but as soon as you start reviewing a menu you realize how wonderful everything is and how you want one of everything!

One night, while dining on meat, cheese, and wine, we spoke to two gentlemen in Spanish – 1 was from Barcelona, and his boss was from Argentina. We discussed which country (Spain or Italy) does various foods better. The consensus was:

Wine – depends on your preferred style, but Italy overall

Bread – Italy

Ham – Spain

Cheese – a tie, but if push comes to shove, Italy’s parmesan wins

Ice cream / Gelato – Italy

Coffee – Italy

Here is what we were eating that night:

The pink meat in the first picture is mortadella, which originated in Bologna. It is so famous that in a slightly modified version, Americans know it as bologna (or baloney).

The food in Italy was so fantastic that we decided while we will continue to eat pizza outside Italy, we may never eat pasta except in Italy again. Seriously, it was that good. Here are just two examples (out of many):

One day, we used the internet to find a pizza place near our location and it sent us to Beppe's. The restaurant was a tiny hole in the wall where Beppe makes pizza with AMORE:

After watching Beppe make our pizzas our expectations were high and the pizzas definitely delivered. They were fantastic! As one food commentator we read noted, Beppe is like the Roberto Benigni of pizza. His enthusiasm makes you want to take him home with you.

And we can’t forget the limoncello:

That’s probably enough Italian food porn for now. We are still working off the extra kilos gained while in Italy and probably will be when we embark on our next visit there.

Finally, one last photo of Bologna – the city’s beloved Fountain of Neptune, which was erected in about 1567. It is so iconic that Maserati apparently based its emblem on Neptune's trident in this statue:

Ciao,

Shana & Jeff

Florence and Ferrara

In addition to Verona, Modena and Ravenna, we took two other day trips during our stay in Italy - Florence and Ferrara. In Ferrara, we visited a new museum that is dedicated to the history of the Jews in Italy. There, in addition to learning interesting things about Jews in Italy (going all the way back to the destruction of the Second Temple and the spread of Jews through the Roman Empire), we also learned that the best place to avoid tourists in Italy is at sites dedicated to Jewish history - we spent over an hour in the museum and saw only museum employees there.

We also had a chance to test this theory in Florence, where we visited the Great Synagogue. While there were more tourists there than at the museum in Ferrara, considering how packed the rest of Florence was, attendance was definitely sparse. The Synagogue, which is Sephardic, is gorgeous:

We very much enjoyed seeing the Synagogue and its small museum, which told about the history of Jews in Florence (a theme).

As for the rest of Florence, we had the opportunity to climb up both the Campanile and the dome of the Duomo for fantastic views:

The Mosaics in the Baptistry were quite impressive (although, no more so than those we saw in Ravenna):

But, overall, we were not enthralled by Florence, which was surprising to me because Florence was one of my favorite cities when I traveled in Europe after graduating college. Maybe it was the extreme level of tourism - definitely the craziest we have seen in all of our travels in Europe - or maybe it was that my memories gave me high expectations. We did have a nice lunch there, but even that was no better than many of the meals we enjoyed in Bologna, and at about 20-25% more in cost. All-in-all, we were glad that we only spent one day in Florence.

Ciao,

Jeff and Shana

Ravenna – City of Mosaics

Who knew that our favorite day trip from Bologna would be Ravenna, a city we hadn’t even heard of before we took this trip to Italy. Ravenna is an easy day trip from Bologna, Florence or Venice – and one we would highly recommend. The sites in Ravenna are a series of early Catholic buildings that contain amazing mosaics, which were a common art form in the early Catholic Church. We walked between the city's numerous UNESCO heritage sites with our mouths gaping as each mosaic we saw blew us away. This was our best day ever spent visiting old churches. And kudos to the city for making it easy to visit all of the sites with one ticket and entry fee.

For such an unknown place, Ravenna has an interesting history. It was the capital of the Western Roman Empire from 402 until 476, when the empire collapsed. It then served as the capital of the Ostragothic Kingdom, until it was reconquered by the Byzantine Empire. The Byzantines left their mark as most of the mosaics were created during their rule. Most of the buildings and mosaics we visited were built in the 5th and 6th centuries, well before the sites we visited in Bologna, which are from medieval times, dating from the 8th and 9th centuries.

It was difficult to capture the mosaics in photos (the pictures just don't do them justice), and even more difficult to select photos to include here. By dumb luck we started with the really good mosaics at the Basilica of Sant’Apollinare Nuovo (which also has a leaning tower, by the way) and finished with the best in the Basilica of San Vitale.

Sant’Apollinare’s mosaics extended horizontally along the church walls. These are just a few close-ups:

Dante Alighieri, author of The Divine Comedy, and perhaps Italy's most famous author, is buried next door to the Basilica of San Francesco where there is a mosaic in the basement crypt that has been flooded because Ravenna sits on soft marshland and has settled over the centuries. This crypt, which even has goldfish swimming in it, is right in the middle of the church underneath the alter (that's Dante's tomb on the left):

The City of Florence is not too happy that Dante is buried 90 miles from his home city, but he was in exile in Ravenna when he died in 1321.

The next site we visited, the Baptistry of Neon, is an octagonal brick building that looks surprisingly squat. This is because the original floor of the building is now about 10 feet underground, which gives what you can see a somewhat odd look. The building, finished at the end of the 5th century, features an amazing ceiling mosaic depicting John the Baptist baptizing Jesus:

Next, we visited the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia, the daughter of Roman Emperor Theodosius I. Although she may not even be buried in her own Mausoleum, this small building is covered in beautiful mosaics: 

Finally, saving the best for last, the Basilica of San Vitale, which includes the largest and best-preserved mosaics, depicting both scenes from the Bible (Old and New Testaments), as well as historical figures:

Although by the end of the day we had started to get neck aches since most of the mosaics are high up, it was worth the pain. We also kept asking ourselves “how’d they do that?” We think that the modern world underestimates the technology of the ancients since these mosaics are about 1500 years old. 

After a long day being awed, we even found a mosaic bench to sit on and rest our feet. And, of course, we had gelato before getting on the return train.

Ciao,

Shana & Jeff

Bologna's Towers

As I mentioned in our Verona post, I can't resist climbing a tower to see the views, and the Asinelli Tower in Bologna was calling to me. Bologna has fewer than 20 towers now, but back in the 12th and 13th centuries, it had more than 100, which must have made for quite a crowded skyline. Apparently, rich families built towers for safety reasons and to demonstrate their prestige. Most of the towers were taken down or demolished, while other collapsed.

The Asinelli and Garisenda towers, Le Due Torri (the two towers), have become the symbol of Bologna.

The two towers are easy to spot from all over and they are located right in the middle of town. Both were built between 1109 and 1119. It is quickly apparent that both towers are leaning, Garisenda far more than Asinelli. We thought Italy had only one leaning tower (in Pisa), but apparently not. As we noted in our Modena post, we saw several others in our travels in the Bologna area.

Garisenda had to be lowered in the 14^th century from approximately 60 meters high to its current height of 48 meters as the ground settled and it became dangerous. The tower is mentioned more than once in Dante’s Divine Comedy.

Asinelli is the tallest leaning medieval tower in the world (97.2 meters high) and you can climb up its 498-step inner staircase. There’s no elevator option here. For a mere 5 euro you can climb with about 30 of your newest friends. (Groups go up every 45 minutes.) This is the way to see Bologna:

As you can see, the views are marvelous, and you can see some of the other remaining towers, as well as all of Bologna’s other landmarks:

You can also see why Bologna is nick-named "The Red," after all of its red brick buildings. (Also for its communist political influence before and after WWII.) 

Another (desperately needed) opportunity to work off the pasta and gelato calories that was worth every step.

Ciao,

Shana & Jeff