Zumaia is famous for cliffs of flysch, a word my spellchecker tried three times to convince me I meant a different word. This location of geologic layering has been a tourist attraction for a long time and the word, flysch, is incorporated into many street, hotel, and business names. Mark and I espied a road cut through a very dramatic section of flysch on our way from the airport to the hotel yesterday, so we had great hopes for up close and personal photo ops with flysch today. (I'm typing "flysch" so much just to piss off the spell checker.) Two things prevented achieving our goal. The first was the viewpoint Ellie took us to was at the top of a cliff with a miserable combination of wind and rain. The second issue was that our expectation of being on a beach with awesome perspectives of stratification and water reflections was not in the itinerary Ellie had planned. She did make some comment about "we'll see", then preceeded to tell us how good the bus was to get here on our own next Monday. Fair enough.
Leaving all possibility of landscape flysch photography behind, we chalked up (no geo-pun intended) our loss. Even though the weather got worse, we switched to "happy" mood and looked forward to the next town, Getaria, an active commercial fishing town with maybe interesting thing to shoot. We were not disappointed.
Starting at the higher end of town, we walked down the old main street and saw the outdoor grills common to many restaurants here. If i got the folklore story correct, the origin of these barbeques came about when fishermen, back from a hard spell at sea, would stop at a bar on their way home to quench their thirst. A pub owner noticed that when the men, hungry as they were, ate fish, they would drink more. Grills were set up to promote the cooking of fish (not sure whether by the fishermen or the pub owner) and it was apparently a win-win situation.
We popped in a church, Salbatore Deunaren Eliza, on the way down to the bay. Definately local, it is beautifully grand in structure and without the austentacious overkill of adornment.
I haven't mentioned it yet, but we are in Basque country. Everywhere two languages are used, Spanish and Euskara which is considered an isolated language, related to no other known language family and itself having many dialects. Basque fishermen not only plied the local waters for fish, but sailed the whole Atlantic as whalers. The church we were in had several references to fishing, one being the carving in the first pew of a harpooned whale.
Finally reaching the dock we got a good look at boats designed for harvesting anchovy. I want to see one in action to understand how it works.
We then visited Maisor, a family owned business which, in their words, is an "artisan elaboration of canned anchovies". That rather literal translation means they specialize in producing high quality anchovy products. If you like anchovies (I do), this is the shop for you. The shop also has large windows allowing visitors to watch the women who process each anchovy by hand (!) prior to packaging or bottling.
Conversation stopping fact number 53, these women clean their hands with toothpaste to remove the fish odor. Must try that at home.
Back in the limo/van, we head up hill just out of town to the Ameztoi winery. A very common phrase used on this whole trip is "imagine you see..." when standing in front of something you should be seeing but can't because of the rain. Ushered to the prime table in the tasting room, we should have been viewing the Atlantic Ocean. I mean, it's right there, behind the green bottle in the photo. But nope, all we see is close range, albeit still lovely, wet hillside.
Fortunately, not seeing the ocean did not hinder our tasting of three versions of Txakolin wine made from a uniquely local grape of the same name. Being a vintner here is tough. Firstly, the rest of Spain is knocking out some good stuff that this tiny little, low sugar grape has to compete with in-country. Secondly, from an international standpoint it's relatively close to France, a big bully and know-it-all of a wine producer. Thirdly, the environment is apparently not too favorable for growing wine in the first place. It normally rains in this part of Spain about 200 days of the year. This is good for grass, but not good when grass grows under the vines, sooo..., the trunk of the vines are trained to a height of almost two meters, keeping the grapes away from the evil grass. Grapes are picked by hand, reaching overhead. At this point, we're just so grateful the wine made it to our glasses at all, that we appreciate it for its shear tenacity of existence. BTW, they do make a very nice, light, slightly effervescent white that I think has been great with many of the tapas we've had. All is good.
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| A break in the rain |
The rain stopped and clouds lifted enough to see the sea. Even in dreary, wet conditions, the topography is beautiful. BUT, I kid you not, between the time I took the photo above, then walked to the van, and got to the head of the road to the winery, it was raining again.
Our last town to visit was Zarautz for lunch. I opted for a starter of squid ink risotto with fried squid, followed by lamb lasagna, and finished with pistachio filled crispy éclairs. On the checklist of the seven deadly sins, I'm batting a hundred for gluttony.
We desperately needed to walk after eating and rain or not, we headed to the beach and long promenade. We got lucky and had a not raining experience. It was overcast but quite nice. For whatever geologic reasons, this long stretch of beach is popular for surfing. We passed several surf shops and could imagine what this place will look like with crowds of summer visitors. Summer, also know as the few months it doesn't rain as much.
Back to San Sebastian in the late afternoon. Later on Mark went out to shoot some night scenes and I stayed in to enjoy our cozy room.
Sleep well.
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