North of Spain travel. Part two.

LA RIOJA

What we loved:

The views from our hotel room were insane! Palacio Tondón was built right by the Ebro river in a little charming town of Briñas. It is a renovated 16th century building with intimate feel to it, perfect design and delicious food. And wine! The wine… You basically go to Rioja for the wine. There are over over 600 wineries in that region. Our boy let us visit three of them;) Another highlight of this trip was a visit to infamous Hotel Marqués de Riscal designed by architect Frank Gehry. The building was very impressive, even though not my favourite architectural style, it was worth seeing even just to walk the beautiful grounds surrounding it.

GIJÓN

What we loved:

This was undoubtedly our favourite town of this trip. Best atmosphere, a beautiful big city beach, delicious seafood. We also visited Oviedo for a couple of hours and as beautiful as the town may be it seemed very much like a ghost town, even though it had tourists to me it lacked the great energy which Gijón absolutely had! Great place, would love to go back one day.

North of Spain travel. Part one.

When J suggested doing a road trip in north of Spain this year my initial reaction wasn’t particularly enthusiastic. What about Ibiza or Formentera? I had hoped to finally travel to these islands this year, and although I had heard of San Sebastian and Bilbao both being wonderful kid friendly places to visit they were not on top of my list. But then I decided to do a little research of northern Spanish cities and the more I researched the more drawn I became to the idea.

We had 10 days and we knew three things. We wanted to experience Bilbao for the Guggenheim museum , eat pinxtos in San Sebastian and visit J’s old friend in Santander. We usually plan trips around architecture, food and hotels and let me tell you we found some real gems on this trip!

So the plan came to life and we decided to fly to Bilbao, then make our way to San Sebastian, then for one day visit Biarritz in France ( I was not wild about this one either, but oh, how wrong was I! ). We then planned to go south to the Rioja region (for the wine, naturally) for a couple of nights, after that I came across a town of Gijón which looked very promising (with a short stop in Oviedo on the way) and finally Santander to stay with J’s old friend and his family.

Yes, lots of ground to cover, but as busy as the itinerary sounded all of these cities are not more than 2-3 hours drive from each other. So all I needed to do was to charge the Ipad for J junior and stock up on motion sickness tablets (yup, it’s terrible).

BILBAO

What we loved:

Our beautiful industrial hotel (Tayko) , with stunning rooms and awesome location right next to the Old Town (Casco Viejo) and famous food market (La Ribera), the Guggenheim Museum (just, WOW), the incredible playgrounds. We also had the best meal of the trip at a ENEKO restaurant 20 mins away from the city. It was spectacular.

SAN SEBASTIAN

What we loved:

I had so many expectations when it came to this city. Most of our friends who have been, talked about how charming and delicious it was. In all honesty my favourite thing about this town was our hotel, situated about 20 mins bus ride from the city centre. The hotel was called Arima, and it had a very unique architecture. It was eco friendly (low energy consumption, aluminum-clad exterior), the restaurant (delicious!) served only vegetarian and vegan dishes, oh, and the pool was nice. Also, right next to the hotel we found a real architectural gem- a stunning steel footbridge built over the Miramon Green Park. So architecturally I was already satisfied. Aparently San Sebastian has the most amount of Michelin starred restaurants out of all European cities. We didn’t dine at any of them and perhaps we should have as the pinxtos eaten at local bars didn’t blow me away (J on the other hand really enjoyed them- he loves Spanish food a lot more than I do). The town seemed super crowded and touristy, so we decided to spend two following days in nearby Biarritz instead. And it was SO amazing.

BIARRITZ

What we loved:

Everything. The crowd, the atmosphere, the beach, the food and the shopping. Clearly a much younger and hippier crowd than in San Sebastian. It is a surfing town, with a beautiful clean beach which completely disappears around 3/4pm because of the tide. Fully recommend. Only a 40 mins drive from San Sebastian.