On our way from Plencia to Santander we stopped for lunch at Asador Extebarri, which is the “#10 restaurant in the world” according to https://www.theworlds50best.com/
We beg to differ. While some courses were excellent, others were just ok, and a few were just plain terrible! I started taking pictures to give it a review like Restaurante Arzak, but it just wasn’t worthy of that. Arzak was FAR better! If you are curious about details, you can see my review here on Trip Advisor.
Because of how bad the service was at Extebarri, we were quite late getting into Santander, and arrived well after dark, so we missed the view from our Airbnb there until the morning.
Not a bad spot for coffee and breakfast!
We spent most of our time here simply walking along the beach. Very relaxing, and the weather was perfect!
We walked through Magdalena Park, which is along the bay, and discovered they had a minature zoo with seal lions and penguins.
We even took a chance and ate at a resturant on the edge of the beach that had spotty reviews on Trip Advisor, and it was excellent, way better than the #6 restaurant in the world! Review here.
A truly beautiful spot that we’d like to come back to at some point, just not in the summer. We saw photos of the beach, and it’s so crowded I don’t know how anybody could enjoy themselves. We prefer the beach with fewer people. Nobody wants to see my lilly white “body by Budweiser” (or in my case Vino) anyway!
We found our way to “Superhosts” (they literally define the term) Inge and Steph’s place above the little town of Plencia, and I have to say the view from here is going to be hard to beat! The hospitality of the hosts and the uniqueness of the experience with them will be even harder to beat! It’s worth coming here just to hang out with them and listen to Inge talk about her passion for teaching and cooking and Steph’s passion for very old maps and charts. These are two quality people! They are originally from Belgium and bring a completely different viewpoint to Spain than the locals. We really clicked with them, and hope to find a way to run across them again in the near future.
I must mention, the night we arrived, we drank 4 bottles of wine…..that might have swayed my opinion just a little!
Here is the view from our room.
Another view from their backyard the next day. We loved that they had sheep and chickens, as well as some very friendly dogs and cats.
We drove to Bilbao from their place and walked around the city for awhile. Very beautiful spot along a river, with a very quaint old town. I could spend more time here in the future. We visited the famous Mercado de la Ribera. I had to laugh when I saw a sign that talks about the history of the market. The English version was very poorly written. If you look closely at the photo you will see that somebody has corrected the various spelling mistakes with a pen. Totally reminds me of something Fletcher would do!
Not sure what the story was but we saw all these Star Wars characters walking around the market? It wasn’t like it was May 4th!
Also, these two Storm Troopers were walking around high fiving all of the kids. These are the bad guys….right! Do you high five a guy dressed up like a Nazi? I think not! My other biggest beef with this group is the guy dressed up as Dark Vader was short….shorter than me! You can’t find a guy who is at least 6′ to play the part??
We then walked back to the Guggenheim Musem, the most famous spot in Bilbao. I will admit the exterior is very cool!
Those are all real flowers in the statue of the dog. Felt like we are in Pasadena! The entrance is right behind the dog.
The musem is mostly modern art, which frankly was nothing but crap that snooty people are too full of themselves to wake up to the fact the King is NOT WEARING ANY CLOTHES!! They don’t allow photos, but I took some anyway. These huge metal walls are supposed to be “art”. Ok. Whatever.
There were 7 sets of metal walls and some of them you had to walk around and around to get to the inside of the walled area. I was hoping for something meaningful in the middle, but no…nothing…empty space. Is that the meaning? Sometimes you walk around in circles for no reason? Wow…thanks for the enlightenment!
Here is my shot of “nothing” just to make sure I’m not losing my mind. There were signs up everywhere indicating the insides of the structure were under “Permanent Surveillance”…..so maybe somebody stole the cool shit that was previously in the middle?
This stack of duct tape was seriously being called “art”. I know, because you could buy rolls of it in the gift shop for 5 euros. Wow….people are often called sheep….but even sheep are not that stupid!
I was caught trying to take other photos, so I will pull up some stock google images (if I can get stock images, why do you care if I take a photo?). These are considered “art”. Gotcha.
The first one was too funny. I told Kim it looked like somebody covered a pig in paint and threw it on the canvas. We then listened to the artist describe his “masterpiece” via our audio guide and he said he covered the model in blue paint and had her jump on the canvas. Wow….the pig would have been better! Somebody PAID for this!
Then there is this one basically made of two pieces of sheet rock that the “artist” marred up and then sold it for god knows how much because people are STUPID!
This one was my favorite…..it’s supposed to depict the assasination of a Roman emperor. Here is some info on this “artwork”: The cycle is based on the cruelty, insanity, and eventual murder of the Roman emperor Aurelius Commodus (161–192 CE). Conflict, opposition, and tension dominate the paintings’ composition. Conflict….tension…yes, it’s coursing through my veins! I see it now! Ugh. Looks like blood splatter analysis from an episode of Dexter to me.
There was plenty more of this garbage. Can we get our 32 euros back please? The one redeeming quality was the temporary exhibit of Van Gogh and Picasso, with some other impressionist artists thrown in. Can you imagine the horror if Van Gogh or Picasso knew their artwork would be in the same building as the rest of this stuff? If not for their artwork, this would have been a total waste of time and money. There was, however, one scuplture that I thought was cool. Guess you can fool me with shiny!
You can even see us in the reflection. Shiny!
More shiny!
The last thing we saw before leaving was this supposed fog effect they “perform” every hour, yet another “art” project they spent god knows how much on. I think I saw better fog effects during high school stage productions, and my high school was cheap!
We then headed back to Superhost Central, where Inge prepared a wonderful meal for us. We only opened 3 bottles of wine that night….but then Steph broke out some special local liquor that I can’t recall the name of. It was towards the end of this dinner that Steph showed us a rock he had uncovered during house renovations. He swears this was man made due to it’s resemblance to a fish. I say it’s a rock that looks like a fish. Let me know your thoughts, particularly if you are a rock expert.
The next morning, after a wonderful breakfast prepared by Inge, we took a walk down by the beach in Plencia. We saw this boat that Steph had mentioned to us previously. Apparently the same idiots who think modern art is actually “art” think that wine aged at the bottom of the ocean makes for better wine. Here is a blurb from their website:
Located in the picturesque Plentzia Bay on the Basque Coast of Spain, Crusoe Treasure Winery has taken the art of wine making to new depths by perfecting the science of underwater aging.
We saw their boat and had to share this legendary wine info! I hope our winemaker friends are taking note!
