San Sebastián

We´re settled into our apartment -- it´s in an old building in the Gros section, it normally belongs to someone named Ainhoa, who is 34 years old, most of her stuff is still here, she just moved out temporarily. It´s an attic apartment without air conditioning, so we´re learning to manage the windows and the fans and to go outside when it is cooler there, eating salads and sandwiches. It has been unusually warm in SS, they say. The apartment has a lot of personality and charm, it reminds us a lot of Ellen´s attic apartment in San Francisco except that here we´re on the 8th floor and we have to take a scary elevator to the 7th floor. The stairs are scarier. Our arrangement is more casual than with the usual USAC-arranged housing. Ainhoa and her mother Ana, the owner, are great, and they have really encouraged us (and made it easy) to make ourselves at home. I´m taking the Modern Basque History class from John Bieter, the visiting prof. from Boise State, who is an excellent teacher. The other 5 students in the class are bright and engaged. It will be a good month. 

There we are --

Back towards Pamplona

Last day on the road

We've been taking advantage of the last days of renting a car -- covering many miles ... it's been good, but I think it will be nice to stay in one place for awhile!

Sheep holding up traffic in Campos, Spain

Horses holding up traffic in Andorra

A high road through Pyrenees

View from hotel window in Gavarnie, FR

Great luck once more

Lots of driving today, going to Barcelona unprepared and in a car was not such a good idea after all, lots of traffic and the wrong direction. We headed northwest through farmland with castles or ancient cathedrals on almost every hill, and Roman ruins here and there ... starting to get a little nervous about finding a hotel when at 9 pm we found a really great one in Campo, a beautiful place in the Pyreneen foothills -- spacious, tasteful & new, and only 49€. And I think we are the only guests! Dinner at the restaurant was trout and leg of cabrito and pimiento rellenos with clams ... we're just across the mountains from the area we drove through in France. It's more arid and wild.

Rain in Spain

Back in Spain

In an overpriced hotel room in Catalunya in a town called Ponts. Andorra was interesting -- huge ski resort complexes, and in other areas huge shopping complexes. Lots of construction. Most of the day we drove through thunderstorms and hard rain. We are trying to decide whether to take a side trip to Barcelona since we're so close ...

On the bathroom wall

Signed Degas, and it didn't look like a print.

Our bathroom at the Chateau de Beauregard

Entrance to a cute hotel in the high. Pyrenees

Viscos was the town. The room was cosy, like a chalet, with hiking
trails outside the door.

Sharing the road ...

And the meadows and the trails and the scenery. Grazing cattle and sheep in the high country is considered a natural activity even in the national park because it has been going on fot so long.

A strong little French horse on a high mt. pass

Adjusted plans

Today we learned that it takes a long time to drive through the Pyrenees on the back roads. After all the winding around and finding ourselves in all kinds of towns, we lucked out by stumbling across an amazing hotel in Saint-Girons, the Chateau de Beauregard, we're in the Arthur Rimbaud room. Lots of antiques and attention to every possible detail. Our best hotel room yet -- also the most expensive but still only 80€. Anyway, we decided not to drive all the way to the Mediterranean but instead to head back to Spain by way of Andorra and see more of the Spanish Pyrenees. Today we saw a lot of paragliders. Every day we see lots of bicyclists training on the steepest routes. Even some with grey hair ...

Mmmm!

They tasted even better than they looked...

A fleur de lys

The flowers here are just amazing.

The very high Pyrenees

We have spent a couple of days near and in the high Pyrenees national park in the middle of S. France -- the most-visited national park in France, so the scene is something like Yellowstone, except that there are lots of people even in the places where you have to hike an hour to get there ... but the scenery is spectacular and the weather has been perfect. Ups and downs with hotels. We are heading east now, along the Pyrenees to the Med. On Sunday I check in with USAC in San Sebastiàn, we move into an apartment there on Monday (with internet!)

Variety

After being thoroughly charmed by the beauties of nature and antiquity, we are experiencing a more ordinary aspect of France in the town of Gan near Pau. There was a punk rock band at the music festival in the town square, the old people fled, the toddlers danced ... we provided quite a bit of entertainment in the boulangerie when we asked if the supermarket was open on Sunday. The possibilities for gaffes in France are infinite. We may head back to the hills for more charm ... but scarce wi-fi.

We crossed this bridge!

165 feet above the floor of Holzarte Gorge ...

Kakuetta Gorge

Larrau

We spent 3 nights in a hotel in a tiny village just on the French side of the Pyrenees. There was a gourmet chef and lots of natural wonders nearby, deep narrow gorges with catwalks and suspension bridges, & hikers wear helmets due to falling rocks. Rivers & waterfalls were spectacular, flowers & birds were everywhere.

A view from the pass into the Northern Basque Country (France)

Hiking in the Pyrenees

We stayed in Zuriza last night -- a beautiful place, but we had to share it with the cows that make the Roncal cheese. A few flies were there along with the cows! But other than that, good weather, great scenery. NOW we´re on our way to France, transitioning from slaughtered Spanish to fractured French. Au revoir ... more photos when we have wi-fi.

Into France

We're getting quite spotty wi-fi (or wee-fee as they say here) access by satellite, storms in the mts. Very green, very beautiful! And very wet.

The village Roncal (yesterday)

Into the wilds...

We're headed into the Irati forest, the second largest old-growth forest in Europe ... hoping to stay a week in a casa rural near Mendilatz which is north of Orbaizeta. I doubt we will have internet access there.

Basque reservoirs are turquoise!

Ernest Hemingway slept here ...

In our room, #23 in the Hotel Burguete.

Staying in Burguete in the Pyrenees

Lamp & art in Pamplona hotel rm

Technical difficulties

I haven´t been able to log into my email account on my iPhone in Europe, so that is cramping my blogging style. I finally have free access to the internet in a hotel, I´ve been too busy to use internet cafes much. Anyway, London was a lot of fun! And now we´re in Santillano Del Mar, a very old town, after flying into Santander. There have been a few glitches, but the weather is perfect and I´m having a great time. I´ll figure out a way to upload photos if I can´t get the iPhone to work ...

Leaving Reno!

Our home for the last week in Reno (one of the 2,000 rooms)

Testing iPhone blogger app

This is supposed to let me post entries and photos from the phone ...