Today we depart La Guardia for Lekeitio which is in the north of Spain on the coast, about 60k’s west of San Sebastian. Kath picked this little fishing village out of a number of possible places to stay up here due to the size of the town, then lack of traditional overseas tourists and the easy ability to walk to Pintxos Bars and Restaurants.
The drive from La Guardia to Lekeitio was taken slightly off the beaten track as we took the most direct route avoiding all major highways. This made for somewhat of a “climb and descent” affair as we crossed a number of mountain ranges, one such range highlighted in images from the previous post.
This peak took us to around 1,100 metres so we stopped at the lookout to snap some shots. The little Beemer handled the hills well with no noticeable struggle from the oil burner under the bonnet.
We arrived in Lekeitio pretty much spot on 1 pm and contacted our Airbnb host to gain entry to the carpark and apartment. The apartment is on the 5th floor overlooking the bay, beach and harbour so there is plenty of ocean-going action to watch throughout the day.
It’s a 5-minute walk down to the main port area where there are numerous restaurants and pintxos bars, most of which are busy most of the day and night.
As we arrived around 1 pm, we were mostly settled in by 2 pm, which is pretty much lunchtime in these parts. We took the quick stroll down to the port and the first restaurant we came across looked pretty good and was indeed recommended by our host so we went on in and sat down.
This is where the language barrier issues really start to kick in on our trip as this part of Spain is actually known as Basque country, and the Basque people speak their own language, funnily enough, called Basque.
So just as we think we’re getting the hang of some basic Spanish, we have a whole other language to deal with. Luckily most people speak Spanish also so we’ve at least got half a chance.
Our particular waiter spoke really no English at all so he was using google translate to give us the “Menú del Dia” (Menu of the Day). We weren’t actually interested in this and just wanted to order off the menu, which we got to in the end.
I ordered some Grilled Hake, Kath had a Tomato and Tuna Belly Salad, and Leo & Gary shared a rather large Soup and a Mixed Salad. My fish, albeit expensive at 16€, was absolutely delicious, sadly the photo was taken before the fish actually arrived!
We went to the supermarket to do a bit of a shop for breakfast items and snacks then headed back to the apartment to do some much-needed washing and relaxed for a bit before heading out to pintxo in the evening.
We strolled on into the first pintxos bar we came across, found a spot at the bar, ordered a couple of Rosé’s and grabbed something to eat off the bar.
This is such an unusual way of eating and one that would have any health inspector in Australia going into convulsions, but it’s just how it’s done here.
The bar is literally stacked with yummy looking snacks all resting on a piece of bread being held together with a toothpick.
Leo and I had this tasty looking number which looked like a frittata stacked on some Spanish ham (Jamon) stacked on an omelette on top of a piece of bread and there might have been some cheese in there also. It was ridiculously good, and probably still my favourite of all the pintxos we’ve had.
Kath grabbed a mini Jamon roll with tomato on it and handed the Jamon to me, I also had a mini tuna and salad roll which was pretty tasty and I don’t really like canned tuna.
No time to stick around though as we have more pintxo bars to visit, which is the way it’s done. You stop, have a drink and a snack, then move onto the next bar.
Our couple of stops had some fried salted cod and some very tasty looking grilled octopus along with other tasty treats. We stayed for a drink at each before hitting our pintxos limit.
It was starting to get a bit late for us non-Spaniards so we found a place to sit down and have our actual meal. After a couple of pintxos though we didn’t need anything too big so we just ordered some “Raciones”, which are bigger than Pintxos but not supposed to be full-size meals.
The place we sat down at didn’t really seem to be staffed for table service so I went into the bar to place our order. We lucked out here as the menus were available in English, which isn’t the case for all places. So ordering was as easy as pointing at items on the menu, and I’ve got drink ordering down pat in Spanish these days.
Leo ordered the Spanish Omelette (Tortilla), I ordered some grilled Octopus, and both Kath and Gary ordered the Mushroom Risotto.
When I got back to the table there was this little old Spanish lady clinging to my chair. She had been deposited there by her friend while they were getting a table ready. I wasn’t really sure how she got there, but I offered her my hand and she directed me to where she was sitting. She was very appreciative of the help.
It wasn’t long before our food started coming out and well, weren’t we surprised by Leo’s meal!? To set the scene a little, my octopus, which was around 14€, came out on a normal sized plate with a normal quantity. All looking pretty normal at this stage.
Leo’s tortilla, which was 10€, literally wouldn’t fit on our table. We actually had to bring over another table to set it on!
There was no way we could eat all of this so we requested to take it home and this tortilla served as balcony snacks for the next couple of days. Note to self, don’t order this for yourself, just order a slice.
We called it a night and lugged the remainder of the Tortilla home in a takeaway container.
On our first full day in Lekeitio, we had the most normal Australian breakfast we could with muesli, yogurt, milk, toast and jam. It’s was good to actually have something “normal” for a change as having things like jamon and salami for breakfast is just a little odd.
We went for a walk around the town, past the port our to the end of the jetty wall then through some of the back streets to check out some other tapas bars. Kath and Leo also managed to dip their toe in the sand and water, although we didn’t go for a swim.
Lunch was almost non-existent however we did manage to have some self-made pintxos on the balcony with some of the leftover tortilla and some tomato and avocado purchased from the supermarket.
I also managed to sneak in some time to make a quick timelapse of the tide coming in.
We skipped official pintxos this evening and walked along looking for a restaurant. We came across “Willows Tavern and Biker Bar” which is at the far end of the port area. Despite the name, they served the same fare as all the other restaurants and as it seemed quite popular, we grabbed a table.
We ordered a serving of Squid cooked in their own Ink, and Cod with piquillo pepper sauce (not spicy). These were, like most food we’ve had here in Spain, quite tasty. They were accompanied by some white, rosé and red wines along with the cheering from the crowd due to the soccer match that was on featuring the local team, Athletica Bilbao playing Real Madrid, the final score was 1 all.
We needed a little something extra so on the way back home we stopped into a pintxos bar and Kath and I ordered a serve of grilled octopus, Leo and Gary had a cup of tea and a piece of sponge cake while we watch the end of the soccer. Sadly the only photos we have of this were taken after the food was gone. #rickstein
Our second full day in Lekeitio was relatively uneventful. Leo and I went out early for a walk, albeit separately as I didn’t rise as early. I stopped by the bakery while I was out and picked up some fresh bread, a croissant and a scrolly looking thing.
Another normal aussie breakfast, some financial management, relaxing on the balcony before going for a walk together to “No Wolf, No Horse” beach that only Leo and I had seen on our morning walk. We arrived around 1:30 so decided to have a bit of lunch which consisted of some fried chips and vegetarian burgers.
Back to the apartment for a bit of siesta and some more blogging before some more homemade pintxos and to work out a plan for dinner.
While we were sitting on the balcony thinking about dinner we heard 4 almighty bangs. They sounded like gunshots or similar but we had no idea at this stage what was happening.
The noises stopped and there didn’t seem to be any cause for alarm so we decided we’d head to a restaurant on at the port that we’d visited the first day we arrived for lunch. They had some nice grilled fish and we felt like something simple.
As we walked to the port though we could hear quite a ruckus with music playing and was seemed like a large crowd of people. We quipped that it would be funny if we turned the corner and there was 1000’s of people in the square.
Sure enough, we turned the corner and I kid you not, the entire town was in the square and were setting off firecrackers.
It seems we had the esteemed privilege of being in Lekeitio on the day the local men’s rowing team came home with the trophy after 13 years of it going to a competitor. The team boat and bus were then paraded into the centre of town with much cheer and pageantry.
After watching all the happenings we headed to dinner at around 8 pm. We were too early though as service doesn’t start until 8:30 pm so we had a drink while we waited and listened to all the festivities happening at the town hall.
Dinner consisted of 3 serves of Grilled Hake for myself Kath and Gary, and Leo had the Fish Soup while we shared a mixed salad. Back to the apartment for some chocolates and almonds for dessert. As a result, I finally get the chance to put the photo in of the Grilled Hake!
Waking up on our departure day saw Leo and I out for another run/walk. This time I took the drone with me and filmed some of the beach. I also got the change to test our the live tracking mode of the Mavic Air so there is a section in the film of Leo running along the beach. Check it out below.
Also here are some stills taken from the drone of the main town of Lekeitio and the island just off the coast.
Breakfast in the apartment again and then a round of packing before heading off to San Sebastian/Donostia.
We’ll pick things up along the way.
Adiós!