San Sebastian ... a peak into some pintxos bars

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Pintxos bar

There are so many of them and they're all inviting.

We picked one where we could sit down. Most patrons stood at or near the bar.

Platters of delicacies are lined up along the counter at the end of which a forearm carved in bronze is pouring a bottle.

At the back of the place, we savour our pintxos and drink our wine, strong, full-bodied Spanish red.

An elderly couple take a table next to us. They are in their seventies, or maybe older. She is well-dressed and wears expensive jewellery. He is a short, thin man with close cropped silver hair and a ruddy complexion.

His kind eyes glisten as he leans over to introduce himself. He tells us this is one of the oldest pintxos bars in San Sebastian. He knows the owner. He asks where we are from. He tells us he once lived and worked in the United States.

His wife doesn't speak, she smiles.

He asks what we think of Donestia, the Basque name for San Sebastian. He is well pleased with our response.

As we get up to leave, he clutches my hand in a strong, warm grip and like a true Basque gentleman, he kisses the back of Cliona's hand.

He welcomes us to his city and wishes us the best of times.

His warmth and sincerity are touching.

These bars are such joyful places. Couples bring their children here. People laugh and banter and make new friends across tables.

You don't see a lonely soul, or a solitary drinker drowning his sorrows.

These bars are a stand-out attraction, here, in this wonderful city.

This romantic pension

Pension Amaiur is one flight up an ancient timber staircase in the oldest building in San Sebastian.

This tiny, romantic hotel has many attractive features.

warm and welcoming

 

many doors feature a religious brass badge

looking down the stairs

This was the only street to survive the destruction of 31 August 1813, when English and Portuguese forces laid siege to the city's Napoleonic occupiers.

The nearby Santa Maria is a spectacular church.

the magnificent carvings and door at the church's entrance

The old city, historic and charismatic, has dozens of pintxos bars. It is a wonderful place to visit.

We are lucky to live close to the border and be able to enjoy two cultures.

A brassy surprise

We shuffled with the crowd along the aisles of  Les Halles ... Biarritz's famous food market.

Here was a celebration of produce, from the sea, from the soil, from the animals of the field.

The quality was evident. We could have spent hours there, but San Sebastian beckoned.

Outside, the intermittent rain was caught and spilled by parasols erected over racks of women's clothes and thin wooden crates of vegetables.

On the way back to the hotel along Rue Gambetta, we heard the sharp, metallic strains of a brass band, underpinned by the rhythmic clash of tambourines and the regular thump of a bass drum.

Eleven men and one woman stood in a line on the footpath. Theirs was joyful music and they beamed joyfully after every number.

Running late and wearing an apologetic smile, a  rotund, florid-faced man carrying a tuba joined the ensemble, a lead trumpet, a couple of trombones, a cornet, a euphonium, a couple of saxophones and percussion.

A tall, thin man in a cap sidled up to the players, stopping behind the trumpet player to look at the music that was clipped over his instrument.

The tambourine player pulled on a cigarette between numbers.

People gathered, drifted away and others took their place. The road was partly blocked.

This is an Easter Saturday tradition in Biarritz.

Biarritz

Well, it's only been about forty years.

I don't remember much, other than the beach and the Heath Robinson mansion on the cliff.

It is exciting to be here. The tourist season hasn't yet got into full swing, but the footpaths are crowded.

A surfer in a wetsuit peeled down to his waist is skateboarding the wrong way on a one-way street.

An immaculately dressed aristocratic couple go into a chocolate shop. A man lets me pat his young Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, the happiest of dogs.

Children are eating ice-cream. A stream of people enter and emerge from a tiny Patisserie Boulangerie at the end of our street. The sign at the front says it's been in the same family since 1910. It must be very good.

We reconnoitre a seafood restaurant down at the old port. We'll go there tonight.

We climb back up rough stone stairs that bring us to the foot of a grand cathedral, where worshippers are celebrating Easter.

Tomorrow we head across the Spanish border to San Sebastian.

Banking

We were warned about the French banking system.

After three months of frustration with BNP Paribas, we requested a switch to Credit Agricole (CA) Aquitaine.

Changing banks should be a straightforward task, but here it's a minefield. It is something so fraught a special law was brought in by Emmanuel Macron, the current front-runner in the Presidential elections, to make the transition less painful.

The transition is still painful.

At first, BNP refused to do it because the account is in joint names... and I alone had made the application.

Then, when the paperwork was in order, we were told it would take a whole month before the change was effected.

So, BNP alerted the various enterprises and utilities which we pay with direct debit of the impending change. But they did so before they transferred the balance to our new account. So the inevitable happened. Electricity provider EDF pulled a monthly amount out and put the CA account in deficit.

I then had to race in to obtain an overdraught facility for our CA account. Other amounts are about to come out, but still we wait for BNP to make the transfer.

Today, Cliona tried to use her new CA credit card to make a modest online purchase. But alas, the vendor said her card wasn't recognised.

sigh

On a brighter note, we took advantage of the warm Spring weather over the weekend to do two long cycles ... one up-river and one down-river.

Sunday's cycle took us to Clairac, where we had a relaxing pitstop at a cafe/bar overlooking the river and the old part of town.

Eymet and Issigeac

These are two charming medieval villages a half hour's drive north of Castelmoron.

They attract a lot of people from the UK, tourists and expats.

It's funny to walk the streets and hear English voices.

We drove up to Issigeac yesterday to look at its weekly market and to have lunch ... but the restaurants were booked out.

So we came back through Cancon and stopped at a village restaurant/bar.

Incongruous with the brasserie-style exterior, the interior decor was plain. There was only one occupied table, three men dressed like farmers who talked at the top of their voices.

But we noticed the back room was full of elderly people enjoying a buffet lunch, so we thought we'd stay and give the place a go.

The menu for 15.50 euro comprised an entre, main course and dessert. The proprietor, a rather gaunt, angular-faced man in his 50's, said if we took the lunch menu there was a soup thrown in.

Our meal was good and we rounded it off with the nicest dessert I've had for a long time. Cliona had an excellent creme brule and I had crepes filled wth ice-cream and dressed with a raspberry/cherry coulis.

Towards the end of our meal, a young woman and baby came in, much to the delight of the waitress, who we figured was probably the child's aunt.

She took the infant from her mother and waltzed around the restaurant for a few minutes, then moved to the back room ... which stopped the conversation. Many grey heads turned, eyes smiling up at the waitress with the baby in her arms. They all made such a fuss of that little girl, who was giggling and lapping up the attention.

The farmers left their table and threw a friendly "Bon Appetit" our way. They stood at the bar, where they drank coffee and continued their raucous conversation. One of them popped outside regularly for cigarettes, joined by the proprietor.

Issigeac

The archway entrance to Eymet's central square