Sunday - the day we went to Vitoria

It was a fairly dismal day, weather-wise, but we went off in good spirits regardless. Although, I must confess, when I woke up I wasn't all that enthusiastic about walking around yet another city. It didn't seem such an attractive prospect. However, it turned put to be well worth while, both the city and the drive were interesting and we had fun. Even though it was a bit drizzly we could still see the countryside that we drove through.

Brit and Emma set their GPS to 'no motorways, no toll roads' which meant that we went along the back roads which took us up and over the hills and down through the valleys. There is an extensive motorway network over here and It's possible to drive from here to Madrid in 5 hours going on the motorway although they always seem to involve  toll roads. We all enjoyed the drive. Fortunately, Brit being Norwegian, is a 'wrong side of the road' driver and also, she loves to drive.  She was very comfortable behind the wheel and we just sat back and enjoyed the scenery. I think Emma had some navigating duties, particularly when the GPS, or 'the lady' as it was affectionately referred to, sworn at and then apologised to, seemed to be issuing odd instructions or turns were missed. 

The countryside was very green and was dotted with enormous farmhouses called baserri in Basque language. We wondered why they are so big but didn't really have any idea. We thought of animals, farm implements, a cidery as well as the family, possibly more than 1 all being housed under the one enormous roof. I have since read some interesting information on Wikipedia about them. I hope that I have a chance to visit one before I leave in June so I can see what they're like in real life.

  There is/was a lot of manufacturing in the Basque Country and factories seem to spread along the valley floors, sometimes they go for a long way, usually  beside a river. A lot of the factories are now closed as a result of the downturn in the economy. 

Some of the many farmhouses along the way.

  I'm not sure if this one is a farm house in the traditional sense but I liked the look of it. Even though it has what looks like a street light at the side of it it wasn't in a town. 

 

This photo is of a tiny village that we drove through. 

 and here they are with their trusty, little car. I took the previous photo from here. I can only imagine how beautiful this must look in the summer. I mean, the little village across the lake, not Barry standing beside the car!

We made it to Vitoria in good time. Emma and Brit were flying back to London from Bilbao at 7.30pm so we had to leave Vitoria in time to get back to Azpeitia and then on to Bilbao, drop the car at the car rental location and then to the check-in etc without being stressed about the time. 

Vitoria is actually called Vitoria-Gasteiz which is the Spanish and Basque name for this city of just over 242,000 people. It's the capital of the Alava province and the capital of The Basque Country. 

We didn't go into any museums, galleries, shops, etc. We got maps from the tourist office after first having coffee, and then we just walked around looking at different places and generally enjoying being there and enjoying each others company. We all liked the city and thought it had a really nice feel to it. 

One of the many churches, enormous as is usual!!

The big plaza from the steps at the end.

The right hand side of the plaza which leads into the town square

One of the buildings on the side of the city square, ex' means 'no' in Basque and ETA is the Basque nationalist and separatist group. I have no idea what this is about. The other banner on the right was about stopping violence against women. 

The tourist office is in through the doors in the middle of the photo. Barry, Emma and I were inside and realised that Brit wasn't with us. Emma went out but couldn't see her so I went to look just as Brit came walking along across the square waving out to me. I turned around to go back in and tell Emma and Barry that she's here but unbeknown to me, Barry had come out and was just to the side of me and as I turned he lifted his arm up to wave to Brit but connected with my nose instead. Of course, I let out a yell/howl/squawk, not sure how to describe the noise, maybe more than one, and put my hands to my face thinking that my nose would be bleeding for sure. Fortunately, the whack didn't cause a blood-nose but it did bloody hurt and tears were coming out of my eyes! In the meantime, the group of men on the right of the photo had moved off and were walking along the walkway in front of the tourist office and they all turned around to see what the noise was about and saw me with my hands on my face and tears coming down and one man came up and looked at me, I shrugged my shoulders (what else was there to do in the land of shoulder shrugging) and he turned and gave Barry a piece of his mind. We were standing under a banner protesting about violence against women after all! Then they all walked off.

We, on the other hand, thought that it was pretty funny, well, what the guy did was funny, my nose still hurt but that passed after a while - no blood and no black eyes the next day.

At one end of the city square there was a big group of people all ages trading 'cards', we don't know exactly what they're called but there a many different kinds and people collect them, I guess 

like some people collect stamps. Apparently Vitoria is a producer of playing cards and there is a museum called the Fournier Museum of Playing Cards which exhibits about 60,000 cards. We didn't worry about finding it.

At some point we realised that we could get onto the Camino de Santiago in the city so we set off to find it - this is the symbol of Camino de Santiago

Barry on the Camino de Santiago, you'll just have to take my word for it because I missed getting the symbol in the photo grrrr

Not far from the top of this road the walk went on up the hill and out of the city so we left it and wandered around some more and we found this guy

you can tell he's from Basque Country because he's got an umbrella. Everyone, from young children to the very old, carry umbrellas because it rains so much. We also have umbrellas that we carry with us every where. Never in my life have I used an umbrella so often!

Another plaza,  I love these open spaces in the cities and towns. Amazing public spaces.

We found Monty Python's parrot

 and some artwork. 

here, outside the main post office, we posted some postcard into the mouth on the left.

 a couple of geezers

These huge bells are being either made or restored as part of the restoration of one of the old chrches.

 

Another narrow 'pedestrian street', no traffic is bliss

  part of the city walls from Roman times. 

 A rather modern looking building. I don't know what it is and as it doesn't have any flags hanging off it I don't think it's a government building.

We eventually found our way back to the main part of town and had a lunch of pintxos and beer in 2 different bars as you do when you're in this part of the world and then it was time to find the car park and the car and hit the by-ways back to Azpeitia.

The trusty lady GPS got is out of Vitoria-Gasteiz and we were on our way. The rain set on quite heavily and the light was very gloomy as we climbed the hills and descended into the valleys so no photos. The terrain is very hilly, sometimes very steep with lots of the big farm houses but we didn't see many animals although I have been told that there are a lot of sheep here.

We were back in Azpeitia in good time and we bid farewell to Emma and Brit and then they were off To Bilbao, the airport and back to London.

All in all, another damn good weekend - thanks Emma and Brit. See you soon for Xmas.

On Wednesday afternoon we headed to San Sebastian-Donastia to catch the train to Barcelona for little 5 night 4 day holiday. And that's for another day.