Coming Back Home

Zarautz is a special place in Spain, and not because I said so or anything like that. And not because I lived here for a summer in 1996, and not because this is where I gained a significant portion of my Spanish speaking ability, either.

It's also not special because I feel like I'm home when I'm here. I realized it was special yesterday evening when we took a wrong turn on the highway about 2 hours from here.

After a two hour drive from Zarautz, we arrived in Santander, and spent the afternoon getting to know the city. Lovely place. I highly recommend it if you have the means. Since this city is also located along the north coast, I figured it wouldn't be very different from The Basque Country. It appeared similar to San Sebastien/Donostia, but felt unique because, for one, there was no Basque language written anywhere. We actually quite enjoyed the place, especially along the harbor.

We left for a place called Comillas around 7:30. Also located on the coast but as a much smaller town further west. I wanted to show my Stephanie a place that houses the Capricho de Gaudi, an apparently special building designed by Antonio Gaudi in the 19th Century. With the sun not about to fully set until 10pm, we figured we could lose. That is until we took a wrong turn south.

We, instead, ended up in a place called Reinosa, in the mountains. Other than the fact that we were in the middle of Spain and everything looks different, if I didn't know better, and judging from the character of the place, it could have been anywhere in middle America that's feeling the crunch of the economic crisis.

We took one of the longest back roads I've ever been on to drive from Reinosa back to Bilbao, to eventually get back to Zarautz.

Keep the faith.