Heading To Montenegro, but first - Paris!

Regular readers may remember our post about training for our swimming trip to Montenegro. We are on our way to Montenegro now, followed by a couple of days in Dubrovnik, Croatia. We, obviously, will have something to say about this adventure after it is over. But, first, on our way, we stopped over in Paris because, of course we did . . . in part because of the cheaper flight options and well, because Paris is Paris.

The first part of this story is what it took to get to Paris. We usually can jump on the first local train from San Sebastian for the 35 minute ride to Hendaye (in France) and get on a 7:20 am TGV train to Paris. But, as we learned about a week ago, that would not be possible this time because (1) the Hendaye station is closed due to the G7 conference in Biarritz (18 miles away) and, perhaps related, (2) the earliest train wasn't leaving San Sebastian until 7:00 am!

So, the first thing we did was try to find a hotel in Hendaye, which turned out to be impossible probably because everyone else had the same idea. However, we did find a room in Irun, Spain -- just across the border -- for the night before we left. Of course, because of all that is going on, our crappy hotel room cost almost 100 Euros. Next, we took a recon mission to Irun to see what walking across the border would be like. While it is only about a 10 minute walk from Irun to Hendaye, we probably saw 20-25 heavily-armed police officers. The good news was, it did not appear that it would be a problem to walk into France.

On Friday night we took the train to Irun and checked into our hotel. After coffee and dessert in the hotel bar we walked over and saw that the bridge appeared to be relatively quiet, with police diverting car traffic, but not bothering walkers/bikers. After a less-than-great night's sleep, we walked to the train station in Hendaye at around 6:30 a.m., and we did not see a single policeman on the bridge (although traffic was still being diverted). So, we had no problem making our train.

We wish the leaders of the G7 countries just had a teleconference.

Now, we are once again in Paris. Last night we went to another show at the Atelier des Lumeries, which displays art in a unique and immersive way. We loved the show we saw in May featuring Van Gogh, and this time we saw one focused on Gustav Klimt. Although we did not think it was as dynamic as the previous one, the visuals were still impressive:

And, of course, there were visuals of the famous Woman In Gold painting:

Sunday morning (today), we headed out to the Cluny Museum, which is dedicated to art and history of the Middle Ages including the famous Lady and The Unicorn tapestries, which were commissioned around 1500 by a wealthy French family. But, the museum is also at the site of ancient Roman baths that date from the 2nd Century. When we arrived, we learned that the museum is currently undergoing a significant renovation, so while we were able to see the tapestries and a small amount of the permanent collection, we did missed out on a lot (to be fair, our entry was free). But, for me, the most interesting part was the frigidarium (cold room) of the Roman thermal baths. This amazingly-preserved room is giant, probably more than 2000 square feet with 40-foot-high ceilings. This picture only gives a small sense of the scale:

While we had seen the ruins of Roman baths in other places, including Pompeii, the scale of these baths was truly spectacular.

All-in-all it has been a good, if brief, stay in Paris. Tomorrow, we take an early flight to Dubrovnik (4:30 am cab (!)), and then a car transfer to Tivat. Much more about our swimming adventures to come.

Hasta pronto,

Jeff and Shana

Back to the Flysch – the Black Flysch

We enjoyed learning more about flysch on the Essential Flysch boat tour back in May when my brother visited, so we decided to try another Geopark tour during the summer. On Saturday (Aug. 17) we went with our friends David and Maite to Deba for the Black Flysch Tour. Deba is a 45-minute train ride west of San Sebastian.

When we arrived, we had time to grab a coffee, and we were fortunate to catch some traditional Basque music and dancing happening in the streets of Deba:

Maite, who is Basque, explained that only coastal Basques wear the traditional blue dresses. She fondly remembered doing this dance when she was a teenager. The men’s performance included drumming and fencing-like play using actual hoes (we assume this is a reference to the importance of farming in the Basque region). We always enjoy these traditional cultural displays and we encounter them more often than you might think.

The Black Flysch tour took us down to Deba’s beach to observe and interpret the layers of Flysch. Deba’s flysch includes the oldest layers, contrasted with the newer pink-colored flysch in Zumaia, where we have been previously. There are three layers in Deba – the black layer, a red layer (that has iron deposits), and a sandy brown layer. (I'm leaving out the scientific names, which sound even more technical in Spanish.) These layers were formed as the Iberian Peninsula merged with Europe millions of years ago. The contrasts between flysch and the additional details our guide provider were fascinating. It was a perfect sunny day – here are a few photos:

We just might go back for one more flysch tour, this time to see the ancient nautilus fossils that have been collected from the flysch. Before you know it, we’ll be flysch experts and able to give our own tours to friends and family. Hint, hint . . .

Hasta luego,

Shana & Jeff 

Semana Grande 2019

We just finished experiencing our third Semana Grande here in San Sebastian. Like the past two years, the city did an amazing job of planning concerts and all kinds of other events. Of course, there was the annual fireworks competition.

Our enthusiasm started out strong – for the first time we went to see the kickoff event – the canonazo (a canon shot) of blue and white confetti. It was cute to see the little kids on their parents’ shoulders with their hands over their ears waiting for the shot to happen. Afterwards we enjoyed the street bands. 

We saw the “giants” parade as well. As you can see, giant figures of cultural icons are carried through the streets each day. We’ve seen this type of parade in various parts of Spain and we’re not sure why it’s so “exciting,” which just goes to show that even after living here for more than 2 years, we will never be “locals.”

We only saw the fireworks show two nights this year. We figured out that if you have an 8:30 p.m. dinner reservation you can finish in time to walk out and enjoy the fireworks. So that worked out really well. But on those nights we ate at home we were just too lazy to go back out for the 10:45 p.m. fireworks.

We also caught some live music (when it didn't rain) and checked out the food truck scene. More than 10 with all kinds of offerings – burgers, hot dogs, Mexican, Argentinian, gelato, crepes, etc. We were very amused by the Basque Truck – serving bagel sandwiches. No joke!

Local ingredients stuffed into bagels. One of the owners is Basque and the other from England and this is their “fusion” concept. We didn’t eat a bagel, after all we rarely ate bagels in the US, but the truck was busy when we were there.

Never a dull moment,

Shana & Jeff

Art & Music; Music & Art

On Wednesday evening we went to a unique concert just outside of town at the Chillida Leku museum. Eduardo Chillida was a Basque sculptor who created El Peine del Viento, San Sebastian's signature sculpture, which we have talked about before:

Most of Chillida's work is like this: extremely large and abstract. The Chillida Leku museum is a giant piece of land (about 27 acres) on which 20 of Chillida's sculptures are displayed in a natural setting. There is also a small 16th century farmhouse that contains some smaller and more fragile pieces, along with other exhibits. The property was purchased by Chillida and his wife in 1983 for the purpose of establishing such a museum, and it opened in the 1990's only to close in 2011 for lack of funding. Fortunately, it reopened this year with the help of the Swiss modern art gallery Hauser and Wirth. Here are just a couple of the statutes on display:

The concert took place after the museum closed. Rather than have the music performed in a one place, the musicians (Sigma Project Quartet, saxaphonists) and the audience (a group of maybe 60-70) walked among the statues to various locations where music stands had been set up. At each location, the group played two songs: one classical and one modern. In between, our "guide" would read quotes from Chillida and others about the relationship between art, nature and life. It all seemed very hippie-ish (the fact that the musicians were wearing all white and walking barefoot probably added to that feeling), but was really fantastic.

The inside of the old farmhouse, where we ended up, was really cool:

The saxaphonist in the photo on the right is performing in the middle of one of Chillida's pieces.

All in all, it was a very fun evening, but I do think we need to return to the museum to take some more time to see all of the art on display and walk among the beautiful scenery. Perhaps we'll even bring a picnic.

Hasta luego,

Jeff and Shana

Jazzaldia 2019

We enjoyed the 54^th version of Jazzaldia, the local jazz festival, at the end of July. The organizers do a terrific job – there are many stages and lots of free concerts in addition to paid concerts in several venues around the city. Opening night we saw the legendary Joan Baez – for free, right on Zurriola beach. Joan, who was one concert away from concluding her “Fare Thee Well” farewell tour was an inspiration. We read into her background and she’s led quite an interesting life. Apparently, she speaks Spanish – her father was born in Mexico – but she spoke to the audience in English. Still, she sang some songs in Spanish and even one in Basque. Her commitment to human rights and justice is amazing. The crowd was huge and enthusiastic. It is difficult to estimate crowd size in open spaces, but our best guess is that there were more than 30,000 people enjoying the beachfront scene and singing along. Here are a few photos that don’t quite capture the event:

The next night we saw Joe Jackson at the Kursaal concert hall, which was not a free show but tickets cost less than 30 Euro. Joe was celebrating 40 years of music – not quite as long as Joan, but still a legendary career. He’s an energetic performer with a talented band. We knew a lot more of his music than we expected, as did the locals. He performed his 1982 hit “Steppin’ Out” just as it was recorded – bringing out a vintage 1980’s drum machine, and having his bass player perform on the glockenspiel, his guitarist play an electric organ, and his drummer only play the snare drum. Joe played all the instruments when he made the original recording. What a kick!

Sadly, when we left Joe’s concert it was raining and it continued to rain heavily over the next 3 days, which put quite a damper on our ability to enjoy the remainder of the festival's free outdoor venues. That’s alright though, next year’s Jazzaldia is already on the calendar.

Hasta luego,

Shana & Jeff