Adventures in Spain: San Sebastian and Pamplona

We promise this is the last of our Spain posts (until our next trip).  We’ve dragged on our trip to Spain for more than a month now and almost considered not posting the last entry, but we couldn’t bear to skip over our final glorious days in the Basque region!

I’m going to keep this brief because the photos will speak for themselves.  We spent one day in the beautiful beach town of San Sebastian, known to have the best pintxos (that’s what they call tapas in the Basque region) and most Michelin star restaurants per capita in the world.  Heavy rain that day prevented us from wandering the beach; however, we happily occupied our time exploring the pintxos bars of San Sebastian.  

Yay we have arrived at San Sebastian!...but booo it's raining!

Adventures in Spain: Tasting Navarra's Best Wines

During our week in Spain, we were invited to tour two of Navarra’s finest wineries.  Neither of us knew much of anything about wine other than how to empty a glass of it, so it was nice to take a closer look and see how wine is produced from start to finish.  The process is extensive: harvest and crush the grapes, fermentation, aging period, and finally bottling the wine to be sold.  The master of all things wine, or the "enologist,"

Adventures in Spain: Road Trip Through Navarra

After our evening tapas crawl in Madrid, the next morning we set off on our journey to the region of Navarra.  After four hours of driving through rather quiet scenery, we arrived at the picturesque Bardenas Reales, a desert-like natural park of plateaus formed by erosion over millions of years. 

We continued on to the historic town of Olite.  It was a very charming town housing the Royal Palace of Olite, previously home to the court of the King of Navarra during the Middle Ages.

Quiet streets of Olite

 Royal Palace of Olite

That day it so happened that there was a special youth federation event – we got to witness a mini “running of the bulls” with the young boys of Olite running with small bulls through the streets of Olite. 

Navarra Gastronomic Week: A Taste of Navarra

The beautiful land of Navarra, Spain - you always hear about Barcelona and Madrid, but Navarra?  Where is that?  Navarra is a region in the northern part of Spain, bordering France, with the capital being Pamplona – this is where the famous running of the bulls occurs every July.  The picturesque Pyrenees mountains and lush green plains are a focal point…but what really entices me is their spectacular offerings of food and wine.

Photo courtesy of the Government of Navarra