About us

A family of five in Aotearoa New Zealand, on an international homeschool journey...so what do we do all day?

Monday, June 30, 2014

With strings attached


Being based in one place for an extended length of time means that after the 'must dos' there is time to explore the unusual and out of the way gems a region holds. The last week in Cantabria has been one of finding the magic in small pueblos (towns), particularly in the Basque country. Here's a wee update on our adventure to Tolosa and the more famous city of San Sebastian.

TOPIC is located in a main plaza in Tolosa
Tolosa is probably not somewhere we would have driven off the beaten (tourist) path to, but with children, who loved the idea of visiting a puppet museum, we made a combined a day's outting to San Sebastian with a visit to Tolosa  International Puppet Centre (TOPIC). This is a world class museum with a decent entry price of €3 for adults and €2 for children five and over. (We've found sights in small towns are really reasonable).

This is the puppet who greets you at TOPIC
Going into the Museum (once tickets have been purchased) requires the pressing of a button (and indication of which language you require), before a door slides open and a puppet talks you through the rules of 'co-existing' in their puppet house. This includes being able to touch and play with some puppets if you are 'very, very careful' and other normal things like no eating and turning off your cell phones, although photos are permitted. As the puppet waves you goodbye, a curtain is drawn up and you go into a magical room where there is a short presentation on the world of puppets...then you pass through another mysteriously opened curtained to meet hundreds of the many international puppets the museum houses (and not all are on display). There is also a special exhibition room, where the region of focus changes every few months. We were lucky enough to see floating water puppets from Vietnam. Meet some of the puppet friends we met:

Puppets come in all sizes, like this Mexican one behind us.

Master A tries his hand at puppetry with the MOTH

These photos don't do justice to the beauty of the displays

Floating Vietnamese puppets 
 A short wander through Tolosa reflects some of the aspects of smaller towns, typical of the area.
Colourful apartments and narrow streets
 
You cover your laundry not for rain, but for stuff those in the apartments above might toss out!

A shop window proudly displaying locally made/themed goods.
After our 'morning session' at TOPIC (morning means opens at 10:30am and closes at 1:30 or 2pm, usually reopening around 4 or 5pm), we headed to San Sebastian for lunch near the famous La Concha (beach area). With overcast weather, and being late in the afternoon (by NZ time, not the Spanish), we mainly wandered the marina, enjoying the ambiance and tossing coins to some young boys who dived for them.

Master A admires La Concha as the clouds roll in.
Two more magical journeys through Eskadi (the Basque Country) followed (posts to come) - tonight we enjoy our last night in Cantabria before heading to Galicia for the last three weeks of our adventure... amazing to think we'll be home in just over twenty days. Let me know if there are any reflections, thoughts, top tips or must dos you might like me to cover off... we have limited internet access over the next few weeks, but will post when I can.

Gracias (thank you) for enjoying this journey with us...

Postscript... two days after visiting TOPIC, on one of our 'down days', the boys produced this:

Master A with his puppet show: Kokako and Snowman - a New Zealand Oddity
 
Master T and his puppet show: Chicken and Train: A Tragedy
 

4 comments:

  1. Love the shows at the end!! So cute :) Wow 20 days - that has zoomed by. Enjoy your remaining Spanish days.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Do you recognize the kokako? Master a got it for his "three birthday".

    ReplyDelete
  3. It's great to see the kids being influenced by things they've experienced, just what you want from homeschooling.
    The plays sound great!

    ReplyDelete
  4. The kokako has survived nearly three years? That's almost as amazing as as the adventures you've told us about since leaving NZ.

    ReplyDelete