Today was another weather day here in Spain, the winds haven’t been good to us which means that everyone gets a day off, including me! After returning to bed and sleeping in for the first time in many many weeks I went down to the cafeteria and had some breakfast around 11am (c: They have this delicious quiche-like thing with really salty ham embedded in it that goes well with “white coffee” or cafe con leche. This was followed up with a chocolate croissant and the rationalization that it was a day off.
The early afternoon saw some exploring around the old-town here in Vitoria, and we stumbled upon one of the four major churches they have in town. No, not the one I mentoned before that is right by the hotel, this one was easily six blocks away! Anyway, right as we were leaving they fired up the HUGE pipe organ that was mounted in the second level and started playing Toccata And Fugue In D Minor by Bach. This song is to organs what “Scotland the Brave” is to bagpipes, it is the organ song and it was amazing!
By the later afternoon some of the other guys were finished with the car and three of us headed out for a drive. It was really good to get out of the city, just to have the change of scenery was very worthwhile. Once we hit the road we decided to go to San Sebastian and see the sea!
Here is San Sebastion from one of the many bridges that cross the canal with either Jesus or San Sebastian up on the hill, you’ll see him again later.
Looking back across the bridge at the busy streets and people
We followed a course of “semi-random navigation” which is my personal favourite, perhaps “purposeful wandering” would work as title and we ended up at the sea. This was the road we took to get there.
We finally reached the sea and the view was spectacular! This is looking back across the bay at the beaches and hotels
Looking along the sea wall
I really like this shot, you’ll have to click it to get the full shot, but the colours on the green hill are great.
Once we were at the sea we realized we were very close to where that huge statue is located and so we started our way up the trail to go and visit. Turns out the that there used to be a cannon battery up there in the 18th century and there were still a lot of remnants from it. The stones in the right corner were part of the wall that protected the cannons.
Wherever there are cannons there are probably people getting killed, if you were lucky enough to be important but unlucky enough to get shot you probably got buried right here.
A view looking from the fortress out over the city
The fortress/museum was under reconstruction and it was difficult to get a good shot so I had to crane my neck way back and look up, waaaaay up and there’s Jesus (or possibly San Sebastian, I’m not really sure) The thing this picture doesn’t show is the handles mounted into his back so you can climb him like a ladder, one would think such things are blasphemy!
After this the sun was setting and we figured it was time to go and find the car before complete darkness overtook us. Turns out we remembered where it was and didn’t get lost all on the way back, the only thing that slowed us downwas a fantastic bakery that had croissants with churizo in them and all manner of amazing sweets.
Tonight we’ll probably go for dinner around 9pm or so, maybe 10, I’m slowly getting used to the late eating and it kind of works well. The other thing that works well is the Spanish version of fast-food called tapas which I enjoyed for lunch. The cafes have an array of finger-sized food out on the bar and you just help yourself to as much as you like, usually 3-4 pieces are enough and then you are charged for them by the piece. The stuff I had today was a ham, egg and cheese sandwich that had been warm but was now cold (very good), a seafood melange on a baguette (also very good), a mushroom cheese mixture that I didn’t really like (not a fan of mushrooms but it looked so good!) and then a little sandwich with prosciutto or something similar. Oooh, yeah, I could do the tapas thing more often!
