While Peter was here we spent a lot of time just hanging out in Donostia, eating pintxos, relaxing on the roof terrace, and drinking coffee (decaf) in the plazas. But we did manage to do some sight seeing while he was here, too.
We took a spontaneous day trip to Pamplona, home of San Fermin (a.k.a. The Running of the Bulls). We decided at around noon we wanted to go, but if we wanted to go that day, we would have to catch the 12:45 bus. So, we grabbed some granola bars and made a run for it. We spent about 7 hours in the town before heading back on the bus. The town itself is very cute and old. We got some advice from one of my co-workers who is from there about things to do and see. It turned out to be great advice. I'm pretty confident that we got to see the best and most beautiful landmarks. We also had a great lunch and had coffee and a drink at a beautiful cafe before heading home. Pete took pictures of a lot parts of the course of the running of the bulls, which were easy to imagine being full of people in the sticky heat of July here.
We also took another spontaneous trip, this time to La Rioja. We decided the day we went to Pamplona (Tuesday) that we wanted to rent a car and go on either Wednesday or Thursday possibly staying overnight. To be able to properly plan, we decided to go on Thursday and rented our car and booked a hotel in the small village of Casalarreina. I contacted a bunch of wineries to try to schedule tastings or tours. We got one tour on Thursday and another on Friday, as well as a tasting on Thursday. We also managed to make it to Laguardia, a very cool medieval walled village in the region. Our trip was particularly exciting because it was harvest time. Every few miles we would come across a tractor with a trailer laden with grapes. The vines were all heavy from the fruit, and it was really incredible to see wine country at this time of year. The scenery in the area is also completely astounding. One of the coolest parts of our visit was that on our Friday tour (at the winery with a hotel designed by Frank Gehry), we were able to taste the grapes as they sorted them. It was very cool to taste the tempranillo grape and the cabernet sauvignon grape, as well as a white grape that wouldn't be used for wine.
Overall, Peter's trip here was fantastic. We got to do some exploring and some relaxing, which was a nice combination.
Today has been weird because it sort of feels like things have reset after Peter left - sort of like he was never here at all and the week he was here was a weird dream or something. I've had a hard time getting anything done today, but I have a pile of laundry that needs to be ironed as well as some work sitting on my table, so hopefully, I'll be able to motivate myself after a brief nap.
No comments:
Post a Comment