We essentially did nothing today, which was exactly the reason we were in Lekeitio in the first place. Tourism, as I'm sure you're aware, is often a tiring pain in the ass. You slog through forums and cathedrals and cemeteries and asture monasteries, take photos, listen to interpretive audio programs, and pretty soon you are convinced you will kill a man if you're forced to take in any more culture. You want to experience a wonderful day where there is no culture in your lives at all. This is why God invented the beach, where you can sit outside on a balcony with a glass of wine and some snack food and do nothing whatsoever, and best of all, you won't feel guilty. We in fact picked Lekeitio expressly because of its lack of monuments. We are clever people.
Our hotel and roughly a million small children. More on that soon.
My parents spent a healthy majority of the day sitting on the balcony and doing nothing whatsoever, but I succumbed to my wandering urge and decided to go walk around. It's a charming Basque town, and it feels totally, completely distinct from Castile and Leon, not Spanish or French but something different entirely.
I found a little trail behind an apartment building on the hill and followed it, finding myself on a winding path between locals personal vegetable gardens. It was beautiful, lonely, and slightly creepy, as I kept on anticipating some old gentleman with a beret and a musket to barrel out of the bushes and shout at me. This did not happen.
I came out onto the road again and walked by the ocean, pausing occasionally to look down at the ocean and scare myself with the thought of just how much it would hurt if I toppled over the edge. There are hordes of seagulls nesting here in summer, and they scream and mew like children, a constant back-beat to the sound of the waves. I kept on squinting my eyes and hoping to see a whale, or at least a manta-ray, but no such luck. The ever-skillful Basque fisherman took care of the whales long ago.
The delightfully weathered Gothic cathedral next to our hotel. Kids like to play soccer against the walls here.
One observation about the Basque: they love mullets. Men, women, and children all sport carefully coiffed mullets, with no apparent embarrassment or remorse. Basque experts: is this some sort of traditional haircut, a tradition whose origin is lost in the sands of deep time, a hairstyle cultivated among the primordial pine-woods of pre-Roman Euskadi? Or do they all really have a thing for Joe Dirt?
The island in the bay.
Second: I have never seen more children in my life then in Lekeitio. I suspect the Basque tactic for gaining notoriety and independence may actually be outbreeding the rest of Spain. Every couple had a stroller with a baby in it, hordes of sandy kids roamed the streets and hunted for crabs, teenagers carried around surf boards and drank beer, and everyone seemed exceedingly, well, fecund. Lekeitio certainly seems like a magnificent, near-ideal place to be a kid. You've got the shore, fishing, boats to play around in, giant extended families to buy you ice cream, lenient liquor laws - it's hard to imagine anything nicer when you're underage and frustrated about it.
Lekeitio is not a restaurant mecca, and I only spotted a few actual restaurants during my wanderings around town that day. Most Basques subsist on pinxtos, the bar snacks that have been elevated to impressive gastronomic heights in this part of the world. Unlike tapas, pinxtos are set out on the bar as a sort of casual buffet for drinkers, and almost always are served on top of a piece of bread. Pinxtos apparantly are haute gastronomic delights in places like San Sebastian and Bilbao, but Lekeitio's pinxtos were definitely working class: fried egg, mayonnaise, sausage, and ham seemed to feature in almost all of them. Needless to say they taste very good. Since these snacks are free in unlimited quantity with the purchase of a drink, it seems many Basques take the economical route for their evening meal. So for lunch, we ate at a very underwhelming restaurant by the water.
We wanted paella, but they sold the very last dish of paella they had to a small child (who did devour it all,) so we had to choose other things off the set menu. I went for the peppers stuffed with cod and was not happy to find it came in cream sauce, which is just Not my Deal. It did taste exactly like pimento cheese (attention Southerners). I switched with my dad and just wolfed down some roast chicken.
For dinner, we decided to head back to the hotel restaurant, which had pleased us the night before.
We started with the lobster salad, which was very attractive and nicely composed. One thing I like about Spain is how dishes are often prepared with a lot of care to appearance and composition, even in restaurants that are off the beaten track a bit. The flavor was also spot-on here: tender lobster, fish roe, and a Crab Louie-like mayonnaise sauce dressing. There is not enough lobster in my life.
My dad had a rustic lentil soup. Lentil soups seem to be ubiquitous across cultures, and this was a good, meaty example of the genre. It's the perfect dish for a cold, cold night. As it was raining that evening and the temperature was rather chilly, it was apropo.
I had monkfish with crab, which was excellent - pan sauteed with some butter and herbs. I have gained true respect for the monkfish during my time in Spain. The monkfish is the most hideously ugly fish in the world, the kind of beast you would expect to lurk in the shallows and lop off the legs of innocent women in bikinis, the kind of hideous monster you would expect to emerge from primordial slime when the moon is high. Despite its appearance, it tastes delicious if properly prepared, with a unique texture and a delicate flavor - indeed, it's often called the "poor man's lobster". I also enjoyed the crab claws that came with it. The kitchen cracked them ahead of time. You would not believe how many times I have ordered a dish like this with uncracked crab claws, forcing me to engage in disgusting behaviors to get at the delicious meat because I sure as hell am not wasting it. Have a heart, chefs. Crack the damn crab legs.
My dad had a mixed seafood grill, which was about the same as the pan-sauteed seafood we'd had the night before, if in variety. Tasty and simple, if not particularly flashy. That's what you get for ordering set menus! (But they are a killer deal).
My mom ordered prawns a la plancha, a classic Spanish preparation. Reminiscent of China's beloved salt and pepper shrimps, the little beasties are grilled and salted, leaving the shells cracker-crisp and delicious and the insides sweet like butter. Basque prawns are the best I have ever had. I ended up eating all of her left over heads and tails. I don't care if I am disgusting. I have no shame, I have no remorse, when it comes to suckin' on shrimp heads. I am not repentent.
We headed to bed. The next day we would head to Asador Etxebarri, the food highlight of our trip.
it was a lovely day.
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