Arantzazu - my final Friday excursion with Miren and Nerea

Our final Friday excursion was to Arantzazu and it was raining, our first wet excursion Friday.

 It's a church, apparently, one cannot see enough churches, however it seemed that this one is rather special for some people in Gipuzkoa, the province of the Bazque Country where Azpeitia is and Arantzazu sits down in the south east of Gipuzkoa. It is1 of the 3 places that San Ignatius visited before he set off on his walk around Europe. When people were telling me about it during the week it was easy to see from their body language that this place is special to them - they clutched their hands in front of their chests, their eyes were bright and their faces were glowing.

Arantzazu is about an hours drive from Azpeitia in a fairly isolated spot in a national park amongst some spectacular mountain scenery. However, because it was a wet day the clouds and mist were hanging fairly low down over the countryside so we didn't get to see the scenery in all its spectacular glory. It was just like driving through from Wanaka to Milford Sound, and back again, on a mist rainy day with the clouds hanging down the down the mountains to just above the road and knowing that all around is magnificent but not being able to see it grrrrrrrrrrrr yes, this did happen to us! We did get glimpses of the mountains and deep, deep valleys so it wasn't all bad on the way to Arantzazu and back to Azpeitia and it wasn't raining all the time.

We had another wonderful day together and it was great to be out driving through the countryside, albeit a rather wet one.

On the way I took a photo of the entrance to the cemetery in Azkoitia, the town just down the road from Azpeitia, rather grand, don't you think?

Now some photos of getting to Arantzazu - 

A lot of the photos taken from the car didn't come out very well because of the rain. There were some very steep drops down to the valleys way down below and we could only imagine what it would be like on a clear day.

here's Arantzazu.

Actually, there's a lot more here than just the church - it's also a sanctuary and ghere's a new conference center as well a couple of restaurants and what was interesting to us, thousands (itseemed, we didn't count them) of car parks. In the summer holidays it is crowded!!!! There are also little Basque country hotels nearby on the road just below and just above the church.

This is the church and the entrance is down the steps

here's some info about it from outside the church.

 this is inside and the little figure in the light represents the aparition of the Virgin amongst the bushes 

this photo was taken from further up the road looking back . We walked up from the car park, one of them, which is just on the other side of this down below the modern buildings up on the right. This is the new conference cenrter.

It always amazes me that buidings could be built in which  seem to be almost inaccessible places a long time ago, and that they seem to just rise up out of the rock and that they have bben there along time. All over Gizpuzkoa there are churches high up on the top of barren hiils of rock - who goes there???

 taken from the same place as the photo above and turned to the right a little

I don't know what all this is for exactly, but I do know that it is all church related. 

We had lunch in a restaurant  beside the place where I took the 2 photos above and this is on the left of the road as we walked into the restaurant - the sign for the Camino de Santiago. It is one hell of a walk, that is for sure.

Lunch was, for me, a disappointment, and for Miren too. She said a couple of times that she wished we'd chosen the one down by the church but 'them's the choices we make', she also said "next time we'll go there"!!!! NEXT TIME - it's a wonderful thought.

This is looking down from the car park next to the church. We had no competition for a carpark, there weren't many visitors that day. 

It's really high up on the side of a steep valley amd we wondered where this road, far below us, went to

Because of the weather, we  didn't hand about for long after lunch. If it had been better we ould have gone walking along one of the tracks into the hills above. 

This is the road we walked up from the church to the restaurant

We did have a good poke about in the shop, obligatory, I think, to look in the shops attached to the places we visit.

Then it was time to go. Taken from the car somewhere on the way down the mountain from Arantzazu. I like it despite, or because of, the raindrops on the windscreen. 

closer to Azpeitia the sky cleared 

and then we were in Azpeitia once again.

Barry , Miren, Nerea and I meet up with Daviah amd Maite to have a last chat and drink with them. Daviah is the cook in the bar where Miren works and has cooked me many dinners over the past few months. She has been off work sick for the past couple of weeks so I hadn't seen her for a while and Maite is Miren's sister who I've mentioned in prebious blogs. A frw drinks and it was time for us to sya goodbye and go - to the vodofone shop to stop the contract on our wi-fi connecter thingy.

 and that was that for our Friday excursions in The Basque Country

It was a shame about the weather and about the lunch bit we enjoyed each other's company and I certainly enjoy trying to improve my Spanish with Miren and Nerea's never ending help and patience.

Thanks to them I've sen a fair bit of the countryside, been to some amazing and interesting places, had a lot of fun, eaten some lovely food and I can't thank them enough but anyway Miren and Nerea - thanks so much. You helped to make my time in Azpeitia so much more than it would have otherwiase been. Eskerrik asko xxx

The next day I began my final week at school in Azpeitia with all the goodbyes that have to be said.

When I think back to the day we arrived there and everything was so strange and I didn't know anyone, I didn't know my way around any of it, not even the school and the language I heard everywhere was like nothing I'd heard before and now, 8 months layer - how different it is.

We are now in London with Emma and Sam and associated people having left Azpeitia, been and gone from Zaragoza. Sometime over the next few days I will be back to blog some more - to finish Azpeitia, tell you about Zaragoza and our time with our fabulous Zaragoza amigos and then to London.

I will post this without proofreading so that we can get out the door to visit Kew Gardens, I hope that there're aren't a lot of mistakes.