Driving from Barca to SS, has anyone done it? Places not to be missed?
Update: here’s the trip report.
City / Nights
Barcelona / 3
Jaca / 1
St. Jean Luz / 2
San Sabastian / 3
Bilbao / 2
General observations:
People in Spain are a life loving, social animals, and very active. They eat more cured ham than all of Italy, more french bread than the french, love gelato, exercise like california’s, and the country side looks like Italy, France, and Switzerland all wrapped into one. They don’t eat chicken, I don’t know why, but I never saw it on the menu anywhere in 12 days. There are flags EVERYWHERE in Spain, they’re just not the Spanish national flag… The roads in Spain are the best I’ve driven in Europe and I’m not talking just the big highways but even the backroads where amazing. DONT DRIVE THE BIG “A” ROADS (autovia). Sure, they are the quickest way to get around but you don’t see anything. You’ll get very good at roundabouts; they have a lot of them. You need a GPS to drive here, the road signage is poor at best for various reasons like; every road had 3 different numbers (A1, N-634, & 2375) and it’s impossible to follow the road just by the numbers. The names of towns, streets, and sites are spelled in various languages especially in the Basque. Paper maps in Spain are “no bueno”. But it’s a blast!!!
Barcelona - great place. stayed at a great little hotel (Pau) right next to the main plaza catalonya next to old town. What a great place to explore and get lost. Lots of walking here; saw the Sagrada Familia, the beaches, and a few other attractions but the action is in the old town. With a couple of open markets worth visiting and 100’s of bars and tapas joins. Come to find out Pintxos are the the main course, a style of tapas, which we lived on for the 2 weeks.
Jaca - stayed of the big road and took the back way through Huesca to get to Jaca. AWESOME. We visited an old castillo on the way Castillo Loarre (killer photo op) and then hit San Juan de la Pena monastery hanging off a cliff (crazy drive!) but just took pix for 10 minutes and bolted. Stayed at Renia Felicia (good place) and walked into old town. Very small and quiet this time of year, after ski season and no summer crowds). Great little town to walk around for the evening and have a few pintxos but one night is enough.
St. Jean Pied de Port, FR - Start of the Camino de Santiago. First, we drove an amazing road to get here from Jaca, headed west towards Pamplona then jump straight north from Lumbier N-150. Oh BOY!!! This is a road you see on the tour de france when they’re hill climbing. Saw maybe two other cars and 30 cyclists the entire way. This town is high on the cute and adorable scale and the Camino was on my bucket list, just to visit, not walk! Great place to shoot pictures, have lunch but there’s not much else other than a very small, cute, 3 block old town. Probably need to avoid this in the summer… It must get SLAMMED.
Sare, FR - extremely small town with zero parking, pass and headed to the La Train de Rhune, a train that rides you up the side of the mountain to the peak. Must be incredible because it was holiday week for Paris schools and EVERYONE in Paris was trying to get on this train. Bummed but we passed. Great views.
St Jean du Luz - We stayed here two nights and used it to day trip around coastal france. Pass on this and just stay in San Sebastian and day trip to Biarritz and Bayonne. Biarritz is like La Jolla, CA only 4 times the size. This is lifestyles of the rich and famous. Bayonne has a big old town area but it was a bit run down compared to others, still nice to visit. Also VERY high on the list to day trip is Hondarriba, right on the French/Spain border. Incredibility quaint place. Gets high points for two castles that are hotels, bravo, and very little commercialized shopping, just local joints.
San Sebastian - Wow - this is the real deal. incredible beaches, beautiful ocean side walks, old town that kicks butt, and people that love working out, eating, and drinking. Base camp for 3 days and rightfully earns its popular reputation. High energy. A+
Rioja - Guardian and Haro. Guardia is a huge winner! Again, we drove to Rioja not using the toll roads, coming down from the mountain into the valley. Superb drive but 2 1/2 hours so we took the toll road back to SS and it was basically boring but only 90 minutes. Beautiful little hill top walled village surrounded by grape vineyards, true gem. I could do a big write up on this but this document is the best out there for planning your trip. The best resource for Rioja. http://www.maribelsguides.com/mg_larioja.pdf
Bilbao - Big city but the old town is very nice with the plaza holding about 7 or 8 great little pintxo places. We did the “circuit” twice in the plaza and walked the entire area. Lots of pintxo bars but also more sit down restaurants than anywhere else we had seen. Great drive on the coastal road from SS. Oh, and the Guggenheim is here, neat place.