Through the Pyrenees and into Spain

Today's schedule is a result of our fluidity. We had planned to make it to the Guggenheim in Bilboa, but looking at the weather forecast, we decided our best day to head through the Pyrenees was today - as it turns out, an excellent decision. Leaving Lourdes was not as straight forward as we hoped, first having to fight off the myriad of wheel chairs, then seeking out afforable - aka grocery store gas and then heading out on the wrong road to Pau. We did however appreciate the beauty of the Fort of Lourdes with it's Pyrenee backdrop and some impressive city architecture.

We ended up taking the Shepherd's Trail to catch the main road through the Pyrenees. It was like being back in the Black Forest - Dawn was not impressed. The scenery, once we headed into the Pyrenees was breathtaking.

The hillside with the sculpted snail was noteworthy.

We ended up not going over the Pyrenees at all, but rather through them. After a 12 km tunnel we found ourselves in Spain - absolutely no indication of that at all other than Rogers telling me I was in Spain. We stopped at the military town of Jaca for lunch.

The next part of the drive was very arid with crop agriculture that had already been harvested. This road also paralled the famous pilgrimage road to Santiago de Campostelo. We have run across this ancient hiking route before but this time we noted a large number of actual hikers.

The next stop on our route was Pamplona, famous for its "running of the bulls". We found a good parking spot and headed out to explore Pamplona. Some kind of bull festive - no running bulls here- but something related was going on and the old section, through which many a man has been trodden by bulls, was packed to the point of over flowing. Please note the child's play for the afternoon - clambering over the stone hut at the fortress.

From Pamplona the road got hillier as we made our way to the coast and San Sebastian, or as the Basque call it Donostia. We've been in Basque country since Lourdes. This is a highly contested region that the Basque have considered separate from both France and Spain. We found our Pension a little ahead of schedule, since they have afternoon closing hours, so since it was 29 degrees we took a walk to the beach which was packed with sun worshippers.

Once we checked in to our pension, we reparked our car in longer term parking, but couldn't get the parking payment machine to work. We will likely find a San Sebastian souvenir on our windshield tomorrow - try to get the money out of me on that one. We headed back to the old quarter for dinner and were charmed by the beauty of the buildings and the variety of tapas available.

For foodies like us, this is heaven - a never ending smorgasbord.