Where's Bertie? He's still in the Aire at San Sebastián.
Weather: Wall-to-wall sunshine and hot, but with awful air clarity this afternoon.
San Sebastián is famed for its pintxos (the Basque word for tapas), so it felt obligatory, whilst we are in town, to have some. That was really the only thing on our agenda today.
It's a tiny bit over 2 miles from the Aire into the centre of town, which could feel like quite a trudge, if over half of it wasn't along the promenade adjacent to the beach which skirts the bay. The continued glorious weather also helped to make the walk a pleasure.
After the best part of an hour wandering around the narrow streets of the town (it was rebuilt on a grid system after being destroyed by a fire (set by the English) in 1813), we selected one of the dozens of bars whose ...um ... bars are lined with platters of food, buffet-stylee:
We chose three items apiece in that first bar, most of which we shared, although it turned out that I picked something that Mick wouldn't like (it involved minced gherkins) and Mick chose something that my stomach wouldn't have liked (a big chunk of cod):
A good bit of people watching later, and out into the town we ventured again, walking around for another half an hour or so until another round of tapas seemed like a good idea. This time we went to the bar next to the first one we'd been in - we'd nipped in there to look at their selection as we left our first lunch and with envy saw that they had lots of different dishes that we would have preferred to the first lot we'd had:
Emerging, replete, from the narrow streets of the town, into the bay area, the day had transformed remarkably from how it had been even half an hour before. The earlier perfect blue sky and clear view across the bay had been replaced with a heavy haze, which smelt of smoke:
Compare with the photo in yesterday's post, showing a clear view across the bay.
A look at the news when we got back to Bertie confirmed our suspicions: there are wild fires burning in Portugal (and into Spain) to the south of us, with the smoke being carried this far north on the wind. Whilst the UK is being battered by the storm remnants of hurricaine Ophelia, there is just an outer tendril of that storm that is touching this coast, bringing us a touch of breeziness.
Alas, after the best part of two weeks of glorious sunshine, it looks like we're in for a bit of rain later this week. From the point of view of the wild fires, that is, of course, a good thing.
Weather: Wall-to-wall sunshine and hot, but with awful air clarity this afternoon.
San Sebastián is famed for its pintxos (the Basque word for tapas), so it felt obligatory, whilst we are in town, to have some. That was really the only thing on our agenda today.
It's a tiny bit over 2 miles from the Aire into the centre of town, which could feel like quite a trudge, if over half of it wasn't along the promenade adjacent to the beach which skirts the bay. The continued glorious weather also helped to make the walk a pleasure.
After the best part of an hour wandering around the narrow streets of the town (it was rebuilt on a grid system after being destroyed by a fire (set by the English) in 1813), we selected one of the dozens of bars whose ...um ... bars are lined with platters of food, buffet-stylee:
We chose three items apiece in that first bar, most of which we shared, although it turned out that I picked something that Mick wouldn't like (it involved minced gherkins) and Mick chose something that my stomach wouldn't have liked (a big chunk of cod):
A good bit of people watching later, and out into the town we ventured again, walking around for another half an hour or so until another round of tapas seemed like a good idea. This time we went to the bar next to the first one we'd been in - we'd nipped in there to look at their selection as we left our first lunch and with envy saw that they had lots of different dishes that we would have preferred to the first lot we'd had:
Emerging, replete, from the narrow streets of the town, into the bay area, the day had transformed remarkably from how it had been even half an hour before. The earlier perfect blue sky and clear view across the bay had been replaced with a heavy haze, which smelt of smoke:
Compare with the photo in yesterday's post, showing a clear view across the bay.
A look at the news when we got back to Bertie confirmed our suspicions: there are wild fires burning in Portugal (and into Spain) to the south of us, with the smoke being carried this far north on the wind. Whilst the UK is being battered by the storm remnants of hurricaine Ophelia, there is just an outer tendril of that storm that is touching this coast, bringing us a touch of breeziness.
Alas, after the best part of two weeks of glorious sunshine, it looks like we're in for a bit of rain later this week. From the point of view of the wild fires, that is, of course, a good thing.
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