Tuesday, October 16, 2012

What a Time

I've been seriously remiss, I know.  I've ignored you and ignored this blog.  Possibly because I'm feeling our time here is drawing to a close, possibly because I have lacked the inspiration, the discipline, or whatever has moved me to keep it up these last years.  Nonetheless, we've been busy.


At this year's Journées de Patrimoine, when lots of usually closed public buildings are open to the hoi polloi, we decided to target the many embassies in the neighborhood.  I've decided that in my next life I want to be the Dutch ambassador to Paris.  Loved that place, elegant yet livable.  The more spectacular Italian and Polish embassies would intimidate me.  And the Swiss was, predictably, boring.

Then for my mid-September birthday we headed down to the Basque country, both French and Spanish.  On the French side the weather was pretty wet and the countryside not my favorite landscape, but we had a fine time among the cows and the peppers.







Then on to San Sebastian, where the weather improved markedly and the tapas would have kept me noshing for weeks had we not had reservations elsewhere the next day.







And then there was cheesecake and churros



We drove on to Bilbao to see the remarkable Guggenheim Museum there and the Richard Serra and David Hockney exhibits, before setting out on an ill-advised "shortcut" through the mountains to our next stop.  Between the Basque language signage, the twisting mountain roads and the utter lack of gas stations, it was what we are calling an adventure since it didn't turn into a catastrophe.



More to come...

1 comment:

Janey and Co. said...

We traveled to the same region last Fall..staying in St. Jean de Luz. Visited everyone of the places you mentioned and even took the same bridge pic in St. Jean Pied de Port.

It was fun to see it all again. Thanks