Holiday Near the Bay of Biscay
We arrived back in Barcelona with a week to spare before classes begun. We met up with our friends Aleks, Mason, and Chuck and concluded we should make the most of the week, and take a trip somewhere nearby. After checking train schedules and flights we found a cheap train from Barcelona to San Sebastian, a coastal town in northern Spain not far from the French boarder. From there we took a train across the French boarder to Bordeaux. From Bordeaux we caught a cheap flight home to Barcelona. We left Sunday early morning for our first stop, San Sebastian.
Upon arriving to San Sebastian we had about a mile walk to our hotel. We began roaming the streets in that direction. It was around 11am, the town was quiet, there weren't many cars, just a few other people walking around. About 20 minutes into our walk we began to get close to the hotel. Simultaneously we began seeing more people. We were just about a block from our destination when we turned a corner and a party occurred out of nowhere. No kidding, one of the craziest things I’ve ever seen. The town was deselect, except for the street our hotel was on. It looked like a mini bourbon street. The NOLA of Spain. Bottles on the ground, people wearing matching outfits, and lots of drinking in the streets. We were into it. It turned out there was either a large surfing competition or a relay on the beach, or something like that, that morning. (We’re still working on our Spanish so we weren’t quite able to conclude what). But we walked right into the after party. And stood there. And waited in the middle of it because our hotel decided to move down the street and change its address without informing us. So that took a while to figure out. I would go into further detail, but it’s really not that interesting other than the fact we were quite confused for about an hour. That afternoon we spent exploring San Sebastian and walking around to the beaches and followed that with a little of what San Sebastain is known for; surfing. After sunset we spent the evening at what has seem to increasingly become our go to; an Irish pub.
The next morning we continued to explore around the beach area. San Sebastian is a quant town, but really beautiful. We found something pretty cool at the end of the pier, some sort of blow hole. Here is a picture of Abby getting “blown away” … haha.
San Sebestain is a beautiful stop to make in Northern Spain and we are so happy we made it for 2 nights before heading to wine country. Summer is ending and it was a great last beach spot and a really fun little town that feels different than much of Spain.
In Bordeaux we decided to rent an Air BnB. This was cool because it could house all 5 of us, and it had an address that didn’t decide to change locations without alerting us. We spent two air condition-less nights here, but made it through just fine.
The first night we cooked dinner as a family. It was quality bonding time for the 5 of us and Chuck even set his phone down for almost 10 whole minutes. Following that, we explored the town of Bordeaux. We enjoyed a bottle of wine right outside of the Saint Andrew Cathedral. We saw Place de la Bourse, the Garonne river, made some stops at a few different pubs, and got home before too late to get some rest for our Chateau tours the next day.
We woke up on Wednesday and got a quick bite to eat before our tour. We ate some French cuisine, which everyone was fine with, but personally I thought was kind of scary. Nothing to write home about, but I guess here I am writing about it anyway. Our tours began that afternoon with our driver picking us up. Our driver was completely fluent in English and an incredibly nice, well-mannered professional. He was able to provide us with awesome insight on the city of Bordeaux on our way out of town, along with some about wine country upon our arrival. It took us about 45 minuets to drive out to our first stop, Chateau Margaux.
Chateau Margaux 1787 is the most expensive bottle of wine never to be sold, and as you can assume Chateau Margaux (the name of the residence pictured above) in Margaux (the name of the region) is where it was created. It is valued at $225,000, which is what insurers paid out when the bottle was broken in 1989. It's list price prior to that was listed at $500,000. The average price for a bottle of Chateau Margaux Grand Vin is listed at $639 per bottle, which is far more common. We explored the outside of the Chateau Margaux and were able to walk along the vineyard. However to arrange a tour inside you must write a letter months in advance asking for permission - which doesn't have a set standard for acceptance. (Good luck).
The next two places we arranged tours at were also in the Margaux region, Chateau Prieure-Lichine and Chateau de Camensac. Here we were able to go inside of the Chateau's along with going through the vineyards and seeing the process of how the wines are created at these locations. Our tour guides here went into great depth explaining how and why wines from Bordeaux are named and listed the way they are which I cannot even begin to repeat to you. However what I can recall is that it is very technical with the types of grapes you'll allowed to use within certain boarders and certain processes, etc. Bordeaux has 7 different regions all which have different names which go on the bottles. The system is very complex and detailed which is why it is held in the high regard which it is. If it name includes the region in addition to "bordeaux" on the label, it means it has met higher standards.
We picked up a bottle of wine from our last stop at Chateau de Camensac and enjoyed it that evening. We headed back to Barcelona Thursday morning. It was a great 4-days exploring San Sebastian and Bordeaux, two smaller towns that weren’t exactly high on our radars before heading abroad. We got to experience a destination that wasn’t full of tourists in San Sebastian, and explore beautiful wine country in Bordeaux, France. It was fun to travel as a pack and we plan to do it more in the future.
P.S. If you haven't been able to tell, were running about two weeks behind on the posting. Since this, we've been to two more countries. I hope to get caught up on track this week and from there on out keeping weekly posts. It's been hectic getting the semester started but now we are settling into more of a routine.
