We still can’t get over how accessible everywhere is from here. Two hours to the right and left to get to the Atlantic Coast or the Med, and hour to the Pyrénées and….three hours to San Sebastian!. We spent an accidental afternoon there once and have always meant to come back.

Big city lights loomed up in the darkness as sat nav informed us we had arrived and the carpark was just down that road, if we just turned right, bore left a bit…

A whistle bearing policeman appeared suddenly, impatiently beckoning us to turn left. Then another, who understood we were trying to get somewhere specific and waved us on And another, blowing her whistle like crazy. Liam did a U turn in the road after the car park suddenly appeared… and then there we were, safely parked, climbing the steps up to the street when

THWACK

a handful of white objects showered around us, like plastic hail.

THUNK

more white things.

Ohhhh!!!! we emerged like Naked Mole Rats right into the middle of a carnival parade! The white things were sweets being thrown from floats!

‘Its a festival for Epiphany’ I said and we happily snapped pictures of shiny dancers looking like they were in San Francisco. What a welcome!

We dumped our stuff in our amazing Airbnb, which had dark green velvet armchairs and balconies and headed out into the night.

A quick restorative glass of red wine and then we discovered a sensational Indian restaurant called Bollywood, I think. The food was delicious, really zingy and fresh.

Another bar, another glass of red wine and a platter of padron peppers and then I staggered back to the apartment with Finn’s partner, just narrowly avoiding a totally random hail storm and an incredibly dramatic thunder storm. Liam caught it on camera; look at that huge pile of hail stones!

Already accepting that we would have a wet weekend meant we were not upset by it and instead celebrated when there were tiny patches of blue in the sky and briefly even sun. Our first glimpses of the sea were through these weird pollarded trees

We followed the curve of the coast round as far as we could. We saw beautiful rock formations

a powerful sculpture

beautiful buildings

two dogs fighting over the same stick

rusty railings

a perfect place for me to model my new blue hair

then, got to the end where there were strange holes in the ground and a weird noise; what could they be?

I think they are sink holes that puffs spray up from underneath. The best experience ever!

There are also these strange symbols, which we later saw in painting in all the different bars we went into:

And there was a very handy pinxtos bar right next to the strange holes and symbols so we dived in, dodging the heaviest rain shower you have ever seen and ate garlicky mushrooms and elegantly drank wine. Heaven.

Then we strolled back, heading inland slightly and, just as we were starting to feel sorry for ourselves because we had got rained on, quite heavily, just like that, we found the best bar ever! We sat on stools, gazing out at the sea, clutching enormous balloons of wine, listening to glorious jazz.

It was just shutting so we only had twenty minutes of this quite wonderful experience.

And then we dropped down into Old Town and met Finn and Juno at a sweet Vegetarian cafe that had oranges growing outside! In January!

Caked up, we set off again, past a riverside Christmas Market and carried on exploring the bars of the night!

‘What is that drink you are making for that lady?’ I asked, slightly bilious on wine by now.

‘Its Vermouth and Campari’ she said and I happily drank those for the rest of the night. And ate anchovies on toast and other things I can’t remember. Salty Goodness. One bar had the best playlist and we have been playing Yello and Killing Joke ever since. It was a wonderful evening, powered by laughter and the relaxed vibe of this beautiful place and ended with us eating pizza at 11pm! It was at a restaurant we had spotted the night before and you could only book a place online and this was the only time slot available.

Empanadas for breakfast

and then we were heading home again by lunchtime, soggy, but happy. I definitely will be back.

Hic!

Madame Boucliers 💋