Barcelona to Bilbao - 7 days and nights in northern Spain with Maribel

Experience the art and architecture, languages and cultures of this spectactular part of Iberia; the Picasso museum. Gaudi's Park Güell and Casa Milá in Barcelona. San Sebastian-Donostia and Bilbao's world famous gastronomy and beauty, Frank Gehry's Guggenheim and Chillida-Leku Museums.

Itinerary Highlights:

Days 1, 2 & 3 - Barcelona

	12:00 noon - Check into the hotel
	The hotel is located in the right Eixample, close to Paseo de Gracia, Plaza Catalunya, Avenue Diagonal and the Gothic Quarter. It is close to some of our favorite places, including:

	La Rambla, the tree-shaded pedestrian boulevard that offers a little something for everyone, from art to food to flowers.
	The Picasso Museum, which contains a collection of the painter's early work and more. Included here is his interpretation of Velázquez's series of Las Meninas.
	The Miró Foundation, which houses an extensive selection from Joan Miró's works and other Spanish and international art.
	The Palau de la Música, one of the world's leading concert halls. Built in 1905, its rococo spaces play host to musicians from around the world.
	Park Güell, a fanciful housing community that just didn't catch on in its day. Its wavy, colorful roofs and benches, designed in mosaic tiles, are highlights of a popular park in a woodland setting, which also features Gaudi's own spartan residence.
	The Sagrada Familia (Church of the Holy Family), a daring work that's been in progress for more than 110 years. The National Geographic says this magnificent cathedral represents the muscle and imagination that lifted Barcelona to the economic and cultural leader it is today.
	Casa Milá (also known as La Pedrera or the quarry), with its irregularly curved limestone walls reminiscent of desert sand dunes. Originally thought too futuristic, it is today considered a landmark of modern architecture.

	While in Barcelona you have the option taking a half-day cooking class, a workshop, combined with a visit to the world famous Boqueria market to select the freshest ingredients.
	Leaving Catalunya, we continue our journey to the Basque Country. A short flight takes us over the Pyrenees to the beautiful Basque seaside resort city of San Sebastián-Donostia.

Days 4 & 5 - San Sebastian-Donostia

From your hotel balcony you enjoy the expansive view of San Sebastián's beautiful crescent shaped beach, La Concha.

	On the first afternoon in San Sebastián we will visit the Parte Vieja, the Old City, often referred to as the jewel of Euskadi. Filled with numerous pintxos bars and outstanding restaurants, San Sebastián is considered the center of Basque cuisine.
	One the second day we will visit the Chillida Leku, a sprawling park, home to the works of internationally famous sculptor Eduardo Chillida.

Days 6 & 7 - Bilbao - Guernica

Bilbao, once an industrial wasteland, has transformed itself to become the center of business in the Basque country and the north of Spain and is challenging San Sebastian as the center of Basque cuisine and culture.

	Today we visit the famed Frank Gehry designed Guggenheim museum after a quick stop in Bilbao's Casco Viejo at the equally famous Riverside Market built by the architect Pedro Ispizua in 1929.
	On our last day we visit Gernika-Lomo, the center of Basque culture and history and it's famed Tree of Guernica, the Basque symbol of heritage, law and freedom and the inspiration for Picasso's controversial masterpiece Guernica.

Day 8

Taxi to the Bilbao airport for your flight home.

Packages for the running of the bulls

Join Peña Seattle in Pamplona-Iruña following in the footsteps of Papa Hemingway

The Fiesta de Sanfermín & Feria del Toro

|the festival of the bull - eight days of the encierro|

Offering Special Packages from 6 to 14 July 2010 Choose from our VIP or Standard 3-star & 4-star Hotel Programs - From 2 to 10 nights Add the night of the 5th at a special discounted rate at our 4-star hotel. Available with both Standard and VIP packages Special VIP & Standard Family Packages available at our 4-star Hotel. A child under 12 stays free in a room with their parents Triple room accommodations available on a limited basis only. Deluxe upgrades available at selected hotels Stay at one of our select country home during the fiesta. Perfect for larger famlies, smaller groups and longer stays. Country homes require a 4-night minimum stay. Our VIP Hotel Program includes our special buffet breakfast in the Nuevo Casino, Pamplona's oldest private social club. The club, located in the Plaza del Castillo above the historic Café Iruña, is open each morning until 10:00 am and again from 1:00 pm until 4:00 am the following morning and is the center of activities during the fiesta. Sponsered by Peña Seattle de Sanfermin. Note: "Hotel Only" packages are also available from the 5th through the 14th |Contact us for price and availability|

You can call from 10:00 am to 5:00 pm Pacific Time, Monday through Friday. |or email us for reservations or additional program information| Agencies please check with us regarding agency pricing guidelines

Las Fallas 2009

The burning of the City Hall Falla, 2009

During our recent tip to Navarra we were invited by the Tourist Office of Spain, VLC Valencia Tourism and the Comunitat Valenciana to be their guests during this year's Las Fallas celebration. It was something totally new for me and quite different than our last visit to Valencia for New Years, when the fireworks are set off in the middle of the day.

Fallas is similar in many ways to the Fiesta de San Fermín, full of energy and late nights, and of course the fireworks, but it has its own style with the final night being the most intense and interesting, especially when we were able to be ringside for the Moors & Christians Parade in the Falla Almirante Cadarso.

After four days of celebrating we needed some rest, a few quiet days in the Rioja before finishing up our original trip to Navarra.

You can view the rest of the images from Las Fallas 2009 at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/37104129@N07/sets/

Dining in the Rioja - Alta & Alavesa

In addition to the outstanding dinner we enjoyed at the Hotel Marques de Riscal, we revisited several of Rioja’s other top restaurants. Here are five that we have added to our select list of recommended dining in the Rioja:


Los Calaos (loscalaosdebriones.com) can be found in the village of Briones, just down from the Plaza Mayor. Housed in a two story deep wine cellar below a charming bed and breakfast inn, this restaurant is very atmospheric and extremely popular. The chef offers a traditional Riojan cuisine of baby goat, roast lamb, roasted red peppers and highly creative desserts. It’s a favorite of local winemaker Miguel Merino. Tel: 941 322 131


Hector Oribe, Gasteiz, 8, in the village of Paganos, 2 km to the east of Laguardia. This small and cozy eponymous restaurant of noted San Sebastian chef, trained by Arzak and Arguinaño, offers very attractively priced dishes that are sure to please. Selected as a Bib Gourmand for value in the 2006 red Michelin guide. It’s another favorite of area winemakers. Closed Sunday night and Monday. Tel: 945 600 715


Las Duelas is located in the Hotel Los Agustinos, Haro. Recently reviewed in Wine and Spirits, chef Juan Nales (trained at San Sebastián’s Akelarre) produces a creative market driven menu with specialties such as mushroom risotto with Parmesan foam, loan of roast venison with hazelnut croquette and fresh cheese ice cream and red wine sorbet. Persue the menu and wine list at aranzazu-hoteles.com/lasduelas.php Tel: 941 311 308 /941 304 463


Alameda, Plaza Azpilicuetam, 1, on the square in Fuenmayor – run by an expert husband and wife team; Tomas Fernandez grills their justly fabled ox steak; Esther Alvarez elaborates the updated, contemporary Riojan dishes. Rated as one of the very best in all of the Rioja by The Best of Spanish Gastronomy. Closed on Sunday night and Monday. You must reserve on weekends. Tel: 941 450 044


Venta de Moncalvillo, Daroca de Rioja-Market driven, creative Riojan cuisine offering as well as a 250 label wine list (plus 50 dessert wines) and great value 38 euro degustation menu. Run by reservations only, call a few days ahead for weekends, located just 10 min., 18 km south of Logroño in a tiny village, population 50. Chef: Ignacio Echapresto García. His brother, Carlos, is the sommelier. Specialties are game dishes. Closed Sunday -Thursday nights. Tel: 941 444 832

Dinner at L’Auberge basque, saint-pée (pays basque)

L’Auberge Basque

We drove from Hondarribia to Saint-Pée-sur Nivelle in late July for dinner at L’Auberge Basque with one of the region’s top chefs, Cédric Béchade (trained by Alain Ducasse at Paris’s Plaza Athénée) and as expected, he didn’t disappoint.

We had first stopped by in June 2007, a few months after the official opening of this small, exquisitely decorated boutique hotel and restaurant, a beautifully renovated former roadhouse located on the back road to Saint -Jean-de-Luz, and had the opportunity to meet with Cédric for a few minutes, but did not have time to stay for dinner that evening, so this summer we returned. It was our first chance to experience Cédric’s Michelin star cuisine. We began our repast with a kir and a Bob’s beer (an artisan brew from Hasparren) taken on their lovely outdoor terrace with spectacular views of the lush green countryside. At sunset we moved into the dining room, a contemporary space with open kitchen and well spaced tables, where we sampled the €43 “menu decouverte”, consisting of amuse bouche, entree, plat, and dessert accompanied by a bottle of Irouleguy Brana Rose ’07.

Pago de Cirsus de Iñaki Nuñez

We recently had the privilege of meeting Chef Javier Luariz-Ayerdi during a visit to this new and exciting Winery/Château Hotel during a scouting trip to Navarra. Javier, a Basque American, born in Miami, is a disciple of Michelin-starred chef Juan Mari Arzak. Chef Luariz honed his skills at the 5-star Gran Hotel Son Net (Relais & Châteaux) in Palma de Mallorca before his appointment as the executive chef at this handsome property in the south of Navarra. The Pago is located in La Ribera, Navarra’s “bread and vegetable basket”, adjacent to the Bardenas Reales Nature Park. The Bardenas Reales, a semi-dessert landscape stretching over 42,000 hectares, might look familiar to James Bond fans, as it doubled for Kazakhstan in the Bond film “The World is Not Enough”. An area of extraordinary beauty, the Bardenas Reales landscape, with its rocky formations, takes on a moon-like appearance with its craters, gullies and solitary outcrops formed over millions of years by erosion.

The Château consists of a tower built of old ashlar stones, in the style of a 14th century fortress, sitting above a sea of some 200 hectares of vineyards, along with a state-of-the-art winery supervised by one of Europe’s most renowned oenologists. This unique property offers total relaxation, breathtaking views, gorgeous sunsets plus cinematic entertainment. The ambitious project of visionary film producer and wine maker Iñaki Núñez, this exquisite retreat provides its guests with a 400-volume film library and a cozy 30-seat cinema where they can watch movies of their choice on demand, plus a wine tasting laboratory where wine connoisseurs can sample the estate’s several grape varietals-Chardonnay, Muscatel, Tempranillo, Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon.

The hotel’s dramatic décor is evocative of a lavish movie set-a romantic’s fantasy-like spending the night in an enchanted castle. The dozen guest quarters, distributed among the 4 floors of the stone tower, have been lovingly decorated with the finest of fabrics and furnishings. In-room amenities include a 37-inch High Definition Oki TV, Bang and Olufsen phones, DVD players, complimentary Wi-Fi, flasks of aged Scotch and rum, and of course, copies of Wine Spectator.



The equally stunning restaurant, “Senda de los Olivos”, which is separated by the winery’s barrel cellar by an enormous glass wall, serves the finest regional produce from La Ribera (delectable local asparagus, artichokes, wild mushrooms), delicately prepared and finished off with the estate’s own arbequina olive and white truffle oils. Chef Luaritz also creates delectable desserts, such as a fondant of hot chocolate with passion fruit ice cream. After their repast, diners are invited to enjoy coffee and a digestif of the wineries own muscatel on the veranda overlooking the pool and Tuscan style garden. Both the Pago’s award-winning wines and artisan oils are available for purchase.

The restaurant has received numerous accolades from Spain’s gourmet press and is sure to receive recognition soon in the prestigious Michelin Red Guide. After only two years of production, the estate’s wines, overseen by French oenologist Jean Marc Sauboua of Bordeaux’s Château Haut-Brion, have garnered six gold medals in international competitions. A Pago de Cirsus label was chosen as one of the 103 best Spanish wines in the UK’s New Wave Spanish Wine 2006 Awards.

To our mind the Château Hotel Pago de Cirsus is one of the most spectacular new hotel–restaurants on Spain’s burgeoning wine tourism circuit.

Hotel Aire de Bardenas, Nobles del Reyno

Located only a few kilometers away from the Pago de Cirsus, with a view of Tudela from the north and Bardenas Reales to the east, the strikingly avant-garde 4-star Hotel Aire de Bardenas takes a totally different approach to providing solitude. One of the select group of distinctive rural hotels belonging to the Nobles del Reino and Rusticae groups, it features only 22 secluded rooms offering guests the opportunity for complete relaxation and contemplation, a chance to be in unity with nature. And the hotel is set amidst the fields of La Ribera that provide Navarra with its abundant harvest of fresh produce.

As described in Wallpaper magazine, the Bardenas Reales “looks like the surface of the moon, and Barcelona architects Emiliano López and Mónica Rivera’s Hotel Aire de Bardenas like a lunar colony. Named after the wind that rolls in over the Bardenas desert, the hotel is a cluster of eight pale boxes around a main hall. They sit a little eerily, like the relic from 2001: A Space Odyssey, in the middle of a wheat field.”

This unique construction was the young architects’ first hotel project, and they found innovative ways to assemble very simple, completely recyclable materials to create a hotel that blurs seamlessly with its surroundings rather than simply to overlook the vast, open space. Each “cube” holds one or two rooms with ten others in the central building. All are built from prefab panels, and reused produce crates from local farms serve as a boundary walls and windbreakers. Those rooms in the central building not directly facing the dessert enjoy a private patio with fruit tree and open-air oval iron tub, which can be used year round.

All guest quarters have been decorated in simple lines using natural materials so as to blend in with the surrounding nature. The unusually deep baths and showers are separated from the sleeping area only by white cotton curtains. And each guest room centers on what the architects call an 'inhabitable window”: large, deep, glassed-in pop-outs with settees where guests can sit to contemplate the desert in silence.

The hotel also offers a seasonal outdoor pool plus restaurant serving the finest in natural cuisine including many vegetarian offerings.

Outdoor activities that can be enjoyed from both lodgings include mountain biking, walking, bird watching or Segway tours of the nature park. Horses, tennis and paddle tennis are available in the vicinity of both hotels as well. The El Cerro 18 hole golf course is due to open shortly, only five minutes away.

Both of the outstanding properties offer a unique glimpse into southern Navarra, its major wine industry and a peek at what Spain considers its main bread basket, producing the finest asparagus, artichokes and piquillo peppers in all of Spain, if not the world.

Please contact us to prepare a custom travel package with accommodations at either one of these highly unique rural lodgings.