Day 144 : Coastal route to Thierry's house

We had a leisurely breakfast prepared by the hotel - a wonderful spread of bread, spreads, jamon, tortilla, French toast, orange juice, etc, that we were completely stuffed.

The owner of the hotel had recommended some places for us to check out while in Ea, and as we had arrived quite late yesterday, we decided to explore the town before making our way along the coast.

We walked to the port, only to find that there weren't any water in the port, and appears water will only come in during high tide. The view of the sea from the viewpoint was great. 

 

As we walked back, we met a very friendly and nice Venezuelan lady whom had stayed in Ea for years and told us of the viewpoint at the church. 

She later also well pointed us to the direction of the abandoned mill Ferrería de Urtubiaga, where we saw a waterfall on the wall of a dam, and a nice countryside walk.

By the time we left Ea was already past 12pm, and we headed straight to the town of Lekeitio, since we didn't get the chance to see much of it yesterday in the dark. 

Lekeitio is a really cute little town with interesting architecture, and a nice coastal view.

It even has a helipad in town!

We took a walk around, and feeling slightly hungry, we settled into the eateries along the waterfront and ordered some pintxos and cider. 

We continued our drive after and stopped at a viewpoint along the way before crossing the border to France at about 5pm. 

Thierry drove through the town of Urrugne, as he wanted to show me the architecture of the houses on the French Basque side of the country - Basque comprise of 4 regions in Spain and 3 in France. 

The architecture of the buildings in this area is more standard across the French side of Basque, all in similar style like this 

We next popped into a supermarket to get some grocery supplies and I was told that masks are no longer needed in France. How nice! 

We then drove back to Thierry's home and had some appetisers prepared by Thierry's housemate Delfyn, and a ravioli dinner by Thierry before calling it a night. 

We got really lucky with the weather as it was supposed to be raining most of today - The sky was really dark at some points, but had managed to held up for us throughout the day with a very short amount of rain on a couple occasions when we were in the car.

It's expected to be wet till at least the weekend, and I am hoping that it would be very similar to today. Fingers crossed! 

Day 143 : Road Trip to Ea

Woke up to a nice leisurely breakfast at the farmhouse, and before leaving, we decided to take a walk around the accommodation. 

As we were walking, we came across some horses in the pasture in the distance. They were ignoring us, until Thierry decided to entice them with grass on our side of the field. One came and then a couple others followed after about 5 mins.

I also got a chance to feed them on our return route back. I suppose we were trying to attract them with "the grass is tastier on the other side of the fence" 😂, which worked! 

We then drove into Guernica to check out the museums - Cultural Musuem which focused on the Basque culture and towns, and the Guernica Museum which focused on the bombing on 26 April 1937. 

Both museums were mostly in Spanish and Basque, with a separate translation available in English on the side. 

However what impacted us most was watching the videos in Guernica Museum of individuals recalling their experience during the 26 April 1937 bombing - these people were kids the age of about 9 or 11 and now they are in their 70s or 80s, and the vividness of what they still recall after so many years is still heart wrenching. 

While the weather was a little better today, we decided to do a picnic outside, so after heading to the supermarket to pick up a few items, we drove to Laida beach to have our picnic lunch, while enjoying the view of the sea and breeze. 

The unique thing about this beach was that the waves comes in 2 different directions because of the water from the river meeting the water from the Bay of Biscay. 

We then drove over to Laga Beach, a sandy beach with the rock cliff, before continuing on our way. 

As we drove towards the town of Elantxobe we came across this goat! How cute! 

Elantxobe is another cute little port town, although extremely quiet as there were hardly any visitors around and only 1 bar opened for drinks. We stopped briefly to have some coffee / hot chocolate before heading to Ea to check into the hotel. 

The room we were assigned was in orange, and it was hilarious to see even the toilet paper was orange! 

After quickly dropping our bags, we headed out towards Elantxobe again, as Thierry has a viewing scheduled with a property agent to visit 2 apartments in the area. The most amazing part of the apartments were the sea view, and they were selling at about €150,000 for a sizeable apartment with 3 bedrooms. 

The only drawback was how quiet the area was outside of the summer season, and the possibly challenges in parking during summer. So I think Thierry is going to sit out on those apartments we saw. 

We were considering doing dinner in Ea, but even the only restaurant that was opened in the town had already closed their kitchen at 8pm. Super rare for Spain since dinner is usually only after 8pm. 

So we drove out to Lekeitio, the next biggest town and found a place to grab some food at Cafe Bar Triana, before driving back to Ea and calling it a night! 

Day 142 : Road Trip to Guernica

After a quick breakfast at what I now call my favourite bakery in Spain (apparently this is a chain outlet), we start our road trip, travelling mostly around the coast. 

First stop was Flysch de Barrika, an unexpected stop as we just decided to pull up when we saw the signs and I was glad we did.

There was a really nice panoramic view here. Thierry asked if I wanted to go down to a viewpoint below to take a photo, but was mindful of my knees and so I said no. Thierry went down though and I took a few pics.

We stayed for a while longer before continuing our way through really small roads and came across this horse which Thierry had called it stuck up 😂

We soon reached another beach and stopped. Gorliz beach had a really huge sandy stretch which was being sandscapped when we were there. We walked towards the jetty and then turned around and drove towards Armintza Mendi for lunch.

Armintza Mendi is a really small town but with a very tall wall to block waves from coming over. There weren't any waves when we were there, but apparently it looked like when strong winds happen, the waves could potentially go over the wall.

We continued our drive and made a quick pitstop at Bakio Mirador, before driving on towards Gaztelugatxe, one of our key stops for today.

What made Gaztelugatxe special is that they have a church perched on top of a cliff, which is accessible only by a flight of stairs. The route up the church is currently under renovation, but actually it was nicer to see the view of Gaztelugatxe from a higher viewpoint which we did.

Pretty cool, don't you think?

I also just found out HBO filmed scenes for season seven of Game of Thrones at the islet - Gaztelugatxe stood in for Dragonstone, with a digitally created castle on top of the islet.

We then continued our drive stopping briefly at Mirador Urdaibai, before arriving in Guernica.

Our first main stop in Guernica - having Churros!

At the Churros stand, the guy was cooking Porras, similar to Churros, but they added an extra ingredient to cause it to be fatter and hollower in the centre.

This is what it looks like when it is done. 

It is then cut into segments and served with sugar. We ordered both a portion of Porras as well as Churros, perfect for a tea break snack!

We walked around Guernica and found the replica of the famous Picasso drawing titled "Guernica" , on one of the walls. This is one of his best-known works regarded by many art critics as the most moving and powerful anti-war painting in history.

Picasso painted Guernica at his home in Paris in response to the 26 April 1937 bombing of this town by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy at the request of the Spanish Nationalists. 

It was starting to get late and so we drove to our accomodation for the night, located just 10 mins away, but in the countryside.  We love those dried flowers hanging above the fireplace!

There are no restaurants around the area, so at the recommendation of the accommodation owner, we headed to Restaurante Boliña El Viejo in Guernica for dinner. The food was really good and seafood was grilled just right!

Will be exploring more of Guernica tomorrow morning!