Eat: San Sebastian and Barcelona

I've been on vacation the last couple of weeks traveling through Europe with my mom.  We decided to theme our trip "Eat," meaning that we were taking a culinary adventure! Our main destinations were Perpignan, San Sebastian and Barcelona.

Both San Sebastian and Barcelona are among the top food capitals in Europe and Spain.

San Sebastian

San Sebastian - Donostia, Spain

This lively city caught between the Pyrenees mountains and the Atlantic Ocean in northern Spain is known as Donostia in the local Basque language.  Their role in food culture is influenced by their pintxos (peen-chos), the local version of tapas.  Yet pintxos are a whole new thing.  Traditionally, you would spend your night out pintxo bar hopping, such that you get a drink and one or two pintxos before moving on to the next stop.  Either you help yourself to the pintxos displayed on the counter, or you point at what you'd like while the bartender serves you depending on the establishment.

Pintxo Bar

A pintxo very often involves a slice of delicious baguette-style bread with a topping.  My favorite toppings were the local cured ham, a salmon and cream cheese combination, and goat cheese with a balsamic glaze and caramelized onions.  Beyond the pintxos on bread, there are also various seafood on skewers such as octopus or shrimp, and warm dishes served on request such as peppers or fried foods.

Pintxos on top, tapas below, and a mug of sangria on the side

Cured Iberic ham

Of course with the pintxo, you order a drink.  I was enjoying the red wine.  At the first place we went, the house wine was 1.80 euros per glass! Isn't that shocking!

Barcelona
From San Sebastian, we road-tripped to Barcelona via the city of Huesca for one night.   Once in Barcelona, we feasted on tapas and paella.  Tapas are small dishes.  You order multiple small dishes to make one very delicious meal.  Some traditional tapas are patatas bravas (potatoes with a garlic sauce), small sausages, fried fishes, mussels, and many, many more.  I found there to be more variety in tapas.

Tapas and Sangria

Then there was the paella... a delicious rice dish with seafood or chicken and veggies.  The key with paella is the large pan in which it's cooked evenly, the small-grain toasted rice, and a pinch of saffron threads.  It's a mouth-watering plate of yumminess, that when made with love, is quickly becoming one of my favorite foods.

Seafood Paella

In discussing Barcelona, we can't leave out the drinks to go with our tapas and paella!  There are varied options.  The local rioja wine can be the perfect touch, or a large mug of sangria, or a more dainty cava (Spanish sparkling wine).  Yum yum.

Cava

Rioja

Needless to say, it was a filling week.  I ate very well, and was able to try new dishes, most of which I liked very much!  I had some much needed mommy-time, as we traveled across France and Spain, in search of delicious dishes, castles, and sunshine.  I can't wait for the next installment in our series of "Eat, Stretch, Dance"!

Barcelona

I've been having a great Christmas vacation (vacances de Noël) these past couple of weeks.  All French schools have two weeks off for Christmas, which isn't as long as in the U.S., but they certainly make up for it with more breaks.  My next two-week break will be at the beginning of March.

Anyways, this break I've kept myself busy and traveling.  I spent time in Barcelona, Bergen, and Perpignan. 

Barcelona

The first day of vacation, I left promptly for Barcelona.  We took a covoiturage (carpool) to get there, which was a cool experience.  Covoiturage is much more common in France, and there's a whole website where people list their trips and can be reviewed by others who have traveled with them.  After our two-hour trip, we arrived in Barcelona and made our way to our hostel, the Barcelona Central Garden Hostel, which I would highly recommend.  We dropped off our bags and left to explore.  And explore we did... with hours and hours of walking!  We walked all through the oldest part of the city, a Christmas market, the fruit and meat market, etc.  After running on empty for a while, we finally found the perfect tapas place for the night.  I tried all sorts of delicious tapas, my favorites were the tuna, small fried fishes, and patates braves (potatoes).  I also tasted cava, the delicious Spanish champagne.

Returning to the hostel, we took a little bit to recharge, before heading out to explore the party scene.  We started in the old part of town at an Irish bar where I had the best sangria and ended up at a five-room (and DJ) club called Razzmatazz.

The next morning we finally got back to our hostel at 6 AM, so after some much needed rest, we made our way to Park Guell, the park designed by the famous architect Gaudi.  His architecture is very unique, with odd angles and designs, and he seems to be the best artist to represent the unique and thriving city.  The longest bench in the world (completely covered in mosaics) is in this park.

Later on, we went to another tapas restaurant that was recommended by the hostel... it was so popular that we weren't seated until around 11 PM!  Super delicious!

The next morning, we walked around a little bit more and found a tasty bakery before I headed to the airport to catch my plane to Norway...