An English Idiot Abroad

However much I came to love the Basque Country and it's people, it gets blummin' cold there in winter! Possibly due to its' elevation (525 metres above sea level - that's about 1,720 feet to old buggers like me), it gets colder in winter than England does! Regularly below zero in the evening, but there are still more sunny, warmer days. By November I decided to leave. The original plan was to head to Valencia for much warmer climes and the MotoGP races at Cheste, but as the championship was so close between Rossi and Hayden, the national press were advising not to go there if one didn't already have a ticket, and an important part of my motorcycle was then stolen in Vitoria, meaning I had to wait for new parts to arrive. Instead, here's a photo from my archives of Valentino sporting a one-off Austin Powers paint scheme(Cheste 2003).
Once I had fixed the bike, I looked on the map and a suitable place to stop on the way was a place called Soria.

This kept up my(unintentional) record of only staying in provincial capitals, as it is the capital of the small province of Soria in the region of Castilla y León. One of the smallest capitals in Spain, housing about 40,000 people, being 40% of the region's population. This makes Soria one of the least populated areas of Europe and the perfect place to unwind. Well known for it's clean air, thanks to the mass of forests and lack of any heavy industry, it is one of the best almost-forgotten areas in Spain. I intended to stay overnight and found that I had to drag myself away from the place after a week to head south for some warmth, as Soria is more than 1,000 meteres above sea level on the high Spanish northern plains, known as the "Meseta". If you really want to get away from the rat race, this is the perfect place to do it! The city's parks are beautiful, and here in Parque Alameda de Cervantes you could easily spend hours in quiet contemplation. You may even have the chance to watch some of the locals(who call the park "La Dehesa" - "The Pasture") feeding the fairly tame red squirrels scurrying around in the trees, while penning your next poem or best-selling novel! Perhaps not surprisingly, it has been home to several famous writers, and is referred to in the tourist literature as "The Poet's Town".

Antonio Machado is the most popular poet in Spain. Born 26th July, 1875 in Sevilla, he lived in Soria for several years and wrote his most acclaimed works here. A lyrical poet in a similar vein to Wordsworth. He wrote “Soria fría, Soria pura” (cold Soria, pure Soria), which is certainly true and didn't give me any refuge fom the temperatures I was trying escape, but the clean air was lovely, and bracing! Marchado doesn't look very happy in this statue, possibly due the fact that he's been decpatitated and his body replaced with a lump of stone!
It's actually a sad story, though. He came to Soria to teach French in 1907, and fell in love with his landlord's 13-year-old daughter, Leonor Izquierdo. They married in 1909, and during these years Machado produced his best work. Sadly, she died in 1912 from tuberculousis.
Here are a few quotes from Machado:
“Travellers, there is no path, paths are made by walking”
“Under all that we think, lives all we believe, like the ultimate veil of our spirits”
“There is no one so bound to his own face that he does not cherish the hope of presenting another to the world”
“Beware of the community in which blasphemy does not exist: underneath, atheism runs rampant”
Other poets of note inspired by the area are Gerardo Diego, and a generation earlier, Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer.

If you're a history fan, then you have many treats in this province, from the many fossilised dinosaur footprints, 140 million years old(not sure how they date these things, as a period of one million years boggles my mind, but it is safe to say they are very, very old), through Celtiberian villages from 300 BC, one of which, Numancia, bravely held off the Roman armies for 20 years, eventually surrendering by setting fire to the village and killing themselves. There is now a reconstructed home there, so you can see how people lived over 2,000 years ago. Roman architecture abounds, including a unique arch in Medinaceli, as well as the inevitable old Spanish churches, like the Concatedral de San Pedro, with 12th century romanesque columns and arches inside, and renaissance and baroque façades from the 16th and 17th centuries.

It is the region's scenery that firmly takes centre-stage. The nearby Picos Urbion mountains have a beautiful glacial lake, Laguna Negra(forgot to take my camera when I visited here!), and are the birthplace of the famous Rio Duero.

The Rio Duero runs by Soria all the way across northern Spain and in to Portugal to meet the Atlantic Ocean at Porto, 557 miles away. Along the way it irrigates many fine vineyards, producing the excellent Ribera Del Duero red wine, and some fine white wines in Galicia and Portugal, including the exquisite Albariño.

On the food front, the best place I found was called Piscis, on Calle Tejera. They do a great "menu", which is always the most reasonably-priced way to dine in Spain. A menu consists of a generous starter, main course and sweet, with bread and drink included. The normal menu was a mere 9.50€, with a more extravagant version for 16.50€. Those not on a strict travelling-blogger budget could try the house specials: Lomo de Ciervo en Salsa de Hongos y Fóie and Chuletón Trozeado al Barro u Cochinillo Frito. The former means tenderloin of deer in a hongo and foie sauce: foie is pate that is 100% duck's(or sometimes goose's) liver, and hongos literally means fungus, but in culinary terms refers to a type of mushroom with tubes rather than gills. Mushrooms are much reveered in Spain, where I have seen several newspaper articles about gathering edible ones over the last couple of years. Seta is the word for mushroom and usually refers to the common open cup type. Champiñones are smaller versions of these(button mushrooms). My Basque friend Freddy, a font of all knowledge when it comes to food, or anything else Spanish, drew me some pictures on a serviette(while enjoying a glass of Pacharán Navarrro) to illustrate the differences.
The latter dish translates to a thick steak(on the bone) seared and cooked in a clay dish or a fried suckling pig.
If you would like to visit Soria, it is about 150 miles from Bilbao, 130 from Vallodolid, and 100 miles from Zaragoza, all of which have airports where budget airlines operate.

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There are many good bars in Vitoria-Gasteiz, most of them being in the old town. My favourite tipple is red wine, and the average price for a small glass of the local red, being the excellent Rioja Alavesa, is 75 cents! Rioja is the most famous red wine region in Spain. This price is for wine "del año" or "joven", which means it's been aged in an oak barrel for less than a year, and probably bottled within the last year.

You can also buy the crianza, which has been aged for a minimum of two years, at least one year in oak. This costs about twice the price and comes in a "copa" (glass with a stem), rather than the standard glasses as pictured here in bar
La Riojana.
In this picture we got a "lock in" as a couple of my biker friends had escaped the inclement English weather for a late-november blast, so they opened the kitchen for us. The bar is always lined with plates of mouth-watering tapas, or as they're called in Basque "pintxos".

Another great bar for tapas is Txistu, where I would recommend the nice portion of king prawns you can enjoy very cheaply. The Irish coffee in here is excellent, and not the normal Spanish version you will see in the guide books which has iced cream in it. It is made by mixing some sugar and plenty of Irish whiskey in a metal jug. This is heated to a very high temperature using steam from the coffee machine, then set fire to. Whilst it's burning the coffee is prepared. These are then mixed and poured into a small glass and the cream added to the top. The result looks like a mini pint of Guinness and is absolutely delicious. (When I go back there next month I will attempt to video the lovely Susana making one of these, and include this here).

Around the corner from here is bar El 7 which serves up the best bocadillos(sandwiches in Spanish A.K.A. French bread), especially the freshly cooked tortillas with various fillings, and the "pollo completo" (minced chicken with bacon, lettuce and mayonnaise) is definitely worth a try. Their Patatas Bravas (deep fried chunks of potato with all-i-olli(garlic and olive oil) and spicy tomato sauces) are renowned here.
The food is served right up to midnight, which is when you'd normally find me and my mate Hardi, although sharing a bottle of wine with him involves having to drink pretty fast! They have a good music selection in here with some of the best Spanish groups, and it becomes a disco bar by midnight on Friday and Saturday, more popular with the young folk.

A great bar on the end of Calle Cuchilleria as you enter the old town is referred to as The Red Bar. This is because it doesn't have a name and the window frames are painted red! It is run by two brothers, one of which, Edu(pictured here), likes practicing his very poor
English on me, saying things like "one wine red" when I walk in.
He plays some good chilled music, the "Buddha Bar" CD's being among his favourites. Vitoria is a very laid back city, so much so that I keep expecting to bump into the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers or Cheech and Chong sat outside a bar here.

One thing you will immediately notice about most Spanish bars is how filthy they appear. Although there may sometimes be ashtrays and bins around, everyone just throws rubbish and fag-ends on the floor. I really got into the spirit of this quite quickly, but it is a difficult concept to grasp for other foreigners that I have met. Here's my American mate Jarrod demonstrating his disdain in bar Boca a Boca, the best place for kebabs in Vitoria.

The best pint of Guinness in town can be found in another pub with no official name, The New Bar, where young owner Ion provides a very good American and English rock music selection. There are so-called "Irish" bars in the newer part of the city which sell Guinness, but none worthy of a mention here.

My favourite bar for brunch and to while way the afternoons and early evenings is Bar Gora. It has very tasty pintxos, especially the large tortillas with fillings like spinach and a tasty layer on top of tuna or mushrooms or ham with mayonnaise - delicious! There is free WiFi here which is very useful for a travelling blogger.

I was in there one evening on my laptop when I overheard English being spoken by some young lads on the next table(not only English, but northern English as well). This is unusual in Vitoria so I asked where they were from. They replied "Sunderland", so, after the normal football team chat(my town's team is Blackburn Rovers), I asked what they were doing here and they said "we're the band".

This is how I came to meet up-and-coming young indie group THIS AINT VEGAS. Their gig at a bigger venue in town had been cancelled, so they found this smaller venue the night before, which was lucky for me. I hadn't heard their music before, but really enjoyed their set. Check out their Myspace page here.
They even burned me a demo CD of their next single "Shortterm:longterm" which was released the following month.
After we had been nicely fed courtesy of the bar, I had a chance to show them a few bars and get suitably wrecked - rock and roll style :) Cheers guys, and good luck!

Other bars worthy of a mention for free WiFi are Hala Bedi, which also has it's own radio station, tasty pintxos and good menus in the evening. Out of the old town, head for Bar Pura Vida.

On an otherwise quiet Monday night, the bar to head for is Bar Segundo(yes, another bar with no name!), which is the second bar along Calle Cuchilleria, where they usually have live Basque folk music and dancing. Some of the music, and especially the dancing, is a little reminiscent of Celtic music(see future posts on Galicia and Asturias for more on the Celts). They have the high leaps, as seen to the right, and a trick where they place a glass of wine on the floor and attempt to jump onto the edges of the glass with both feet and balance for a second. If they don't break the glass or spill the wine, they get a round of applause and triumphantly down the contents.

The guy on guitar is singer-songwriter Mikel Urdangarin, a very nice guy who is based in Vitoria. He has produced several albums and his music is very relaxing, almost melancholy. You can listen to some of it through his YouTube space here, although it's in the Basque language, Euskara(which pre-dates all the surrounding Indo-European languages, thus sounding pretty alien), it's very soothing and the perfect antedote to a stressful day! I only recognise the odd word, such as "maite" (love). There's a short biography(in English) on his website, and on the englishpen site, which also has a translation of one of his songs "Hauskor" (Fragile) into English, although I'm not convinced on it's accuracy.

One of my favourite haunts, especially at the end of the night when the other bars are closing, is Extitxu. Peci gives you a hard time if you enter when the shutters are half closed, but is a great bloke. He has the best, or at least most diverse music collection in town. For example, one night I was in there and heard Peter Murphy's 1989 album "Deep" playing. His former band, Bauhaus, were one of the best, if little-known, gothic bands of the 1980's and their song Bela Lugosi's Dead is a true classic.
Even later revellers head for the infamous El Bodegon, a real bohemian place where you will come across some interesting characters, and a few weirdos as well, but quite harmless.

If you want to carry on drinking and chatting when the bars close, you can always get drinks in plastic glasses to take away and sit in one of the plazas, as we're doing here outside the city's modern art gallery. The police, who are rarely seen - especially in the old town, don't hassle you. Vitoria is the city I feel most safe in. You do sometimes see police in full riot gear at weekends when the youngsters are out, but pitched battles in the streets between young Basques with separatist tendencies and riot police are, thankfully, quite rare.

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