June 11

We all crammed into a cab and got to the airport with plenty of time before our flight to San Sebastian.  It was a 1 hour flight from Barcelona on Spain's SW part of the Med to San Sebastian which is on Spain's North West part of the Atlantic and is Basque country.  Basque food is different from other parts of Spain and instead of tapas they have pintxos  (pronounced like pinchos.)  It was raining off & on and we had a bite to eat at the hotel cafeteria and then walked to the Old Town.  The Old Town is Neo-Gothic with narrow streets filled with restaurants, bars and shops.  We went into a supermarket to buy some wine & snacks for our rooms and went back to the hotel to get out of the rain.  Around 8:30 we walked back to the Old Town to a pintxos bar Pat & I enjoyed on our last visit here and had a load of pintxos.  One of the many specialties is thin sliced Iberian ham, which is Spain's version of Parma ham and is very tasty.  Another interesting favorite here is baby eels, about 1 inch long and the diameter of thin spaghetti - very tasty on a sandwich as well.  We had an ice cream on the way back to the hotel.