DAY 8, 02 November Friday Travel Day from Puente Viesgo to San Sebastian.

DAY 8, 02 November Friday Travel Day from Puente Viesgo to San Sebastian.

The breakfast room was rush hour packed for a Friday morning but then again many Spanish have taken Friday off so that they have a 4 day weekend. We checked out and headed for San Seb. It was very overcast and knew it was going to be a wet drive through the mountains. Not sure if it was rain or just a low heavy cloud but it was very wet for our drive,  at least to / thru Bilbao which had traffic backed up for at least 4-5 miles coming towards us but our path ahead was smooth sailing. It is beautiful country and as we drove down towards Bilbao we were taken back a few years to 1970 when we made a similar trip there to the British Consulate to tie the knot!

Nearing San Seb the rain stopped and the sun shown upon us. We stopped in Orio to find some lunch and ended up at an old haunt, the Bar Restaurante Jose Mari. Orio is a fishing town sitting on a large tidal river. This restaurant had its own fishing boat at one time and members of the family had perished at sea. Years ago David had stopped there and was told the sad story by the Mama. She said she didn’t even have a photograph of her son. Well if

you know David you know how many photographs he takes! This was before
digital so that sweet guy went home, found photos of the family and sent them to her. Their specialty is whole fish, besugo (sea bream) and merluza (hake), grilled to perfection and basted with a fabulous garlic/olive oil sauce. It is very expensive, from 52 to 78 Euros a kilo! We decided what the heck and went for it! Not often you spent that much on lunch! We had taken the kids there on our family trip and they had loved it.

 We had taken the old road from Bilbao towards San Sebastian very little traffic and no large trucks with which to contend. We checked into the Hotel San Sebastian and put the car into the underground garage. A short siesta and we were again off into the old town for pixtos. We started in the Mushroom bar, next we had crab similar to Barcelona tapas, then Bar Martinez for varieties, pedron peppers, and a final new place for a cheese surprise pixto with York ham too. Our bus ride back to the Hotel San

Seb became a lengthy adventure as we failed to notice the stop closet to our hotel and ended up at the #5 route terminal for a return into town so that we stopped in front of the Hotel Codina opposite our Hotel San Sebastian. Wow that fun and bumpy in the bendy bus back down into town again!