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

 

Big boats and fish-men

Daddy and Master T watching soccer

It's been a historic week for Spain -  we witnessed their tears as their soccer team fell from grace (losing two games in the World Cup and consequently won't make it through to the next round) and their joys with the coronation of King Felipe VI.

This is our second week in Cantabria and our third in Spain. We are slowly adjusting to the fact that everything shuts between about 1:30pm to 4:30 or 5pm, the late eating hours, and the heat. We have started to chat regularly with our neighbours, and continue to work on 'quiet apartment living', given that our hosts, who live below, welcomed a new daughter into the world on Monday. With our noisy lot, they'll be looking forward to our departure in just over a week!



Outside the Maritime Museum

We've had somewhat of an aquatic and historic theme this week, kicking off with a day in Bilbao at the River Maritime Museum. We went on a Tuesday and it just happened to be free! Cantabria is located next to the Pais Vasco/ Basque country (where Bilbao and the more famous San Sebastian can be found) and it is a short 20 minute drive from our 'home' to Bilbao. Bilbao is located along a magnificent river and the River Maritime Museum provided us with a historical account of the development of city, bridges and river bed. The Museum included games for the children (such as pirate fishing and rowing), a life-size replica of a barge for the upper class and dozens of miniature boats.

Wee Master T adores boats - possibly an accumulation of experiences of water-taxis, his favourite Dali book with a 'boat' sculpture included and the fact that Castro Urdiales (the township we regularly visit for food and beach time) is a sea based town - so he was in his element looking at all the ships and nautical paraphernalia.



Dry docked boats

The most outstanding element of the Museum is the inclusion of the Bilbao city exhibition that was presented at Shanghai Expo in 2010. Developed in conjunction with the Guggenheim Museum, this display combined 'architectural lighting' with audio-visuals for an emotive account of development of Bilbao. The static photos don't do it justice (and I was too in awe to take any), but if you get the time, check them out.

Outside the Museum is a dry dock housing a variety of different boats. Unfortunately this area was not open on our visit (perhaps this is why it was free? -although museums in Spain frequently have 'free days'), but we enjoyed strolling around them from above and looking at the massive anchors and chains.

Museum visit was followed by a good lunch in a cafe by a fountain and exploring a park of amazing sculptures... stay tuned for a post on food in Spain in the next few days...

Lunch in Bilbao - despite Master A's face, it was delicioso!



Kids interacting with art.

We also visited Bilbao later in the week to take in the Bizkaia Archaeology Museum, tracing the human archaeological history of the area from Neolithic to modern times. While not exactly a 'child friendly' place (the security guard trailed us through the three levels), our lot really enjoyed watching the video footage of early people in the temporary display, learning about archaeological digs and research and discovering the visual differences in tools, utensils, cemeteries, housing and boats over time. The museum is free on Fridays, but all displays are in Spanish and Basque. We purchased the accompanying guide book, which has detailed photos and information (we got the English version) so we've been able to discuss a lot of what we saw in more detail.

Between visits to Bilbao, we decided to head West towards Santander and visit the small village of Lierganes, where there is a Fluvarium (a river based eco-museum). Many small villages will open their (sight-seeing doors) for two sessions: 10am to 2pm and 4pm (or 5pm) to 6pm (or 7pm), closing for lunch in between. Because our stomachs are still mostly on NZ time, and we have to travel some distance to many locations, when going to these places, we try to get there early to maximise our visit before lunch. On this occasion, the Fluvarium was closed for the morning - no sign posted on the outer gates and we had a some what disgruntled guide inform us we needed to come back at 4pm.

How does one kill four and a half hours with three children in a small town?

We had a snack drove another half hour to Santander, hoping to visit another Museum, only to discover, by the time we'd parked and located the building, it was also closing for lunch... so when in Spain... do as the Spanish do... we found a cool little restaurant and ate lunch. By which time the Fluvarium was open.

A great lunch finished in Santander

The Fluvarium is a little dated and quite small. The introductory film is very informative and reinforces a sustainable message and the otters in fluvarium area are adorable (even if they are practising their mating - nothing like a biology lesson for our bemused children). We were lucky enough to watch the otters being fed with a group of touring Senior Citizens, who adored the children and ensured they got front row seats!

One of the stars of the Fluvarium

Master T and Daddy check out the turtles

Our little people were in the Fluvarium for a good hour or more - and we decided to wander the streets of Lierganes to find the hombre pez (fish man). There is a legend of this mythical man dating from the 1600s (makes interesting reading if you have the time) and there is a wee house and sculpture depicting this story. While the house was shut when we got there, the fish man was sitting on the banks of the river and the amble through the cobbled and quaint village was lovely.

"We've discovered a fish-man!"

"With scales"!

On our travels we've visited sights where we've queued for hours and been engulfed in hoards of tourists and visitors - thus far, the 'attractions' of Bilbao and Cantabria have been almost void of people (aside from the Guggenheim, but comparative to some places was relatively quiet). It's not that there aren't lots of people, just not lots of people in the museums! I wonder what that says about our choice of activities?

School holidays have just started in Espana, the sun is shining (with the exception of a spectacular electric storm we had last night) and the boardwalks are coming alive...less of the history and more of the mystery of Spain this week me thinks... ciao guapos!

A bottom note
Carrying on from an earlier blog on loos... Miss K has observed an oddity of toilets in Spain - the toilet paper always seems to be placed in the most difficult-to-reach locations (including in our current residence). She asked me to take a photo of the toilet in the Fluvarium to demonstrate this point...

Barcelona...(sang Freddie Mercury style)

A week ago we left Barcelona and made our way across Spain to Cantabria. Our time in Barcelona was incredibly relaxed, with a spacious home, complete with toys for the children, a swimming pool and plenty of slow time.

Playing with Lego on terracotta tiles in our Barcelona home.

I even managed to cook my first Spanish Tortilla in Spain - and it came out pretty well! Often at home it seems to cling to the frying pan... must be the olive oil????

Before we left, we visited Park Guell, a stunning display of Gaudi's creativity and brimming with colourful pedlars, musicians and street performance.

We really enjoyed this live reggae band... we even got their CD!

It's a bit of climb to reach the park, not to mention somewhat of a hassle to find parking (all which is at the bottom of the hill) and we probably spent a good half hour searching for a parking building. The majority of Park Guell is free to the public, but the 'monument area' where most of Gaudi's work can be found, requires a small entry fee. There is a limit of 400 people entering per half hour (for preservation reasons) and we had to buy our entry ticket two hours in advance (which gave us time to have lunch and wander the perimeters of the park). If you book online, the fee is a little cheaper and you can show the PDF on your mobile phone. Take note, the loos are few and far between here and queues are long!

Some of the work you can find outside the monument area

It's difficult to put into words the  magic of Gaudi's vision and the beauty of that space - instead a few photos of our afternoon...

Miss K takes a photo of us in front of amazing tile mosaic work

The 'washer woman' and some zunda mochi-ers

 

The 'Hansel and Gretel' style house Gaudi is famous for

 

In front of the famous 'dragon' - it's hard to get a photo with so many tourists!

 

Miss K looks out over the buildings of the park

 

Daddy and Master T share a moment in the shade of the park

A day or so later it was 'adios' to Barcelona and a six hour car ride to Otanes in Cantabria. We were armed with iPod jammed with RadioNZ and Storynory tales, food and drink. Spain's Toad roads are dotted with rest stops, most of the petrol stations we stopped at had excellent facilities. There are also park stops (for picnics and cat naps) - they don't have loos, but are equipped with identical climbing frames, that even in the heat of Zaragoza (30 degrees Celsius) can be beneficial to children in need of some exercise!

 

We have three lovely weeks here in Cantabria. It's hard to believe week one is almost over. We've really slowed down,  sleeping in and little by little adjusting to 'Spanish time' for lunches (around 2pm) - but not dinners (8 or 9pm)... with the heat and long days we may get there yet! Stay tuned for a post on our encounters with the Yoko Ono exhibition at the Guggenheim in Bilbao and an incredible safari park!

Things of miniature importance

With only six more weeks of this adventure remaining, the MOTH and I have begun to think there are alterative ways of approaching our days... perhaps that should read, after spending close to three months travelling with three small people, the MOTH and I have come to the conclusion there could be better ways of doing things...

It's no huge revelation that small people have ways of telling you things are not working for them. When you are travelling, or visiting amazing tourist attractions, some of their ways of telling you aren't always ideal. Miss K has had a few major meltdowns when crowds and tiredness get the better of her. Master A's meltdowns can be loud and furious when staying in small-spaces with other people. Master T generally seems to spit the dummy when we're driving long distances.


Spain seems to have been a bit of a turning point so far. This may be for a number of reasons (mainly to do with the MOTH and myself).

1. Having lived in Spain for about a year and a half in total, there's a sense of familiarity for me. The supermarket shelves are crammed with good stuff to eat, the language is beautiful and I can understand the signs.
2. The MOTH and I both speak the language with relative ease.
3. I've mentioned food, but loving Spanish food and knowing what stuff to cook and how to cook it makes for happy tummies and happy family.
4. The house we're in is enormous and we feel like we are on holiday (even though I'm still working).
5. It's just us (and not just us in a small hotel room) - while we loved being with other people, we love having some space to just be ourselves too.
6. We have reverted to our NZ time routines (in general) - no 9 pm dinners for us (yet).
7. It's sunny and warm.

This bodes well for reflecting on why some things might not be going so well and what we could do better. We realised a few things:

What do you mean another attraction?

• Miss K pointed out that we do too much 'stuff' in a day. The MOTH and I thought we were doing one thing a day (with down days scheduled in where possible)... but the last six days involved eating out (often at three different locations), different beds, sight seeing of some monument or attraction and a long drive, not to mention different language, different scenery and different food. Lots of stuff. We need to slow down.

• Quite often the small people were taken to see sights that they didn't really know or understand because we (the MOTH and I) had some peculiar sense of urgency that since we were somewhere (London, Paris), we had to see something (Big Ben, the Eifel Tower). We've spent some time talking about this - who says we have to do X just because we are in Y? We can do something completely different and it's ok, because then it's our adventure in Y.

• We needed to help give our small people context for what they were doing and create some familiarity about it. This is why we think Zunda Mochi is significant to our children - they went twice to the Sendai Castle where they experienced this. It was familiar and had meaning. This is not to say we have to do everything twice, but to prepare/think about/ engage and involve our wee people more for activities (like the Dali Museum).

•   This is our family's trip and all members should be involved in discussing and choosing what we do with our time while somewhere.

SO....

Yesterday I provided the children with ideas for different things that we could do in Barcelona (if they were older they could look up things themselves). Some of them were famous sites (Gaudi's Sagrada Familia for example) and some were less known. We read the information online and saw some short clips. We had four days left in Barcelona; I booked the Saturday for a nearby market, the rest were open.

One of the attractions I had stumbled across was Catalunya in Miniature - dozens of attractions of the region in one space in miniature, complete with model trains - the children elected this as their first choice because they could see lots of the stuff in one place and think about maybe going to see some of them for real. I put Tarragona on the table - that got pushed off in favour of Guell Park - maybe on Thursday or Friday, depending on how we feel. Or maybe La Rambla...

And the MOTH and I - we're all ok with that.

So here's our adventure of Catalunya in Miniature in photos - a little pricey (cheaper to buy online), and having a car to get to it is an advantage, but our three enjoyed three hours here... and I have to say, I liked it too!

WOW it's in miniature and there's a train!

We didn't even have to queue to see this!
 

The boys love the train

And it's Zunda Mochi from us in Barcelona!

 Akira's question of the week:  Why didn't Dali make or paint any trains? :-)

The Toad Road: Travelling South through France

One of the challenges we've faced on this adventure is sometimes having to sacrifice budget for convenience. When deciding between an extra hour (or more) in the car to save the cost of a toll road between France and Spain, we always opted for the toll option. There are only so many squabbles parents can survive, and then there's the fighting amongst the kids.

On our second day of travel, Master A asked if we were going on the Toad Road. It's become one of those 'family things' that happen on a trip. A bit like the 'zunda mochi' pose you see the kids striking in many of our photographs. Zunda Mochi is a Sendai delicacy of green bean paste and sticky rice cakes. Sendai has adopted this phrase as the new 'cheese' for when you take a photograph, and our children, fascinated with the ninja pose they learnt at the same time, have incorporated it into pretty much every photo... but I digress...

The road from Paris to Barcelona can be driven in around nine hours (according to Google Maps and if you are able to whizz along toad roads without a dozen toilet stops). We decided to break up the trip, travelling on average two hours a day and stopping at little villages along the way. The Man of the House (MOTH) was in charge of sleeping sites, which he arranged via booking.com, with varying outcomes.

Day one - we departed Paris and visited Versailles on what had to be the wettest and windiest day we'd encountered in France. Having started out a bit later than intended (packing for five who have spread out over an apartment is time consuming), we opted to visit only the gardens of the Palace of Versailles. The queue for the palace was LONG. Usually, visits to the garden are free (except for Sundays and Tuesdays) and as it was Tuesday we had to pay (kids 5 and under are free) and we were also treated to displays of the water fountains.

Weathering the wind and fountain in Versailles

The gardens are massive and excellent for small people to run around and let of steam. We'd packed a picnic lunch (must be eaten in designated areas) and admired the beauty of the site. Miss K enjoyed the history of the palace, particularly a diluted account of the French Revolution, being in Versailles made history come to life. If doing Versailles without small people, I imagine taking the two day passport to see garden, palace and other buildings option would be well worth it. Miss K suggested in 10 years she and I come back and do so - here's hoping!

From Versailles, via the toad road, we headed to Jargeau. A small quaint town near Orleans, where we stayed in a small, quaint, but clean hotel (Cheval Blanc), ate ok Pizza at a local restaurant and discovered that Joan of Arc had a historical moment here.

Statue of Joan of Arc in Jargeau

Day two -We missed breakfast at the hotel (overslept) and wandered hungrily around the village, searching for a wee café. Found a boulangerie and it was croissants for breakfast. Having embarked on discussions about St Joan we decided to visit the city of Orleans.

Miss K and I on a fountain in the plaza near the Cathedral of Orleans

This township is beautiful. Its cathedral inspired questions about different biblical stories, we saw a peaceful protest march and lunched at a local creperie. There is also a Louis Pasteur Park here, which Master A was thrilled about: "I know him," he announced (we'd read about him last year), although it was too wet to go to the park. A short stop here and we pressed onto a little hotel on the outskirts of Bourges. Our hotel (ACE) was new and clean. A family friendly restaurant was located nearby and breakfast was relatively cheap and plentiful.

Travelling France reminded me to be grateful for my (and my children's) love of history and stories, my high-school French and the MOTH's fearless driving skills.

Day three- We pressed onto Clermont-Ferraund where I suggested that our two star hotel room reminded me of a hospital. The MOTH's response was that that was an insult to hospitals! Inspired to escape our dreary accommodation, we headed out to explore the volcanic region, taking a train from the base of Puy de Dome to its gusty top, buffering ourselves against the wind and cold. It was thrilling.

A Zunda Mochi pose in front of the train for the Puy de Dome

It's cold up here Dad!

Day four - Most hotels have a stand with brochures enticing you to local visitor attractions and Vulcania in Clermont looked amazing. Touting itself almost as a  volcanic Disneyland, we joined throngs of locals to visit this attraction that draws on the natural landscape for its theme. We 'rode' two rides, queued for lunch and watched an ecological film. Unfortunately Vulcania didn't live up to our expectations with very long queues, inefficiency and too many people for two few attractions. Over priced, while we mostly enjoyed ourselves, we wouldn't recommend a special visit.

Zunda Mochi at Volcania

Leaving Vulcania around 3pm meant we arrived at our next destination of Le Caylar (a remote village in the mountains) a little late for our tired and hungry children. The hotel proprietor was a warm and welcoming lady and directed us to a nearby quirky restaurant for a home-cooked meal. This was probably the best meal we had paid for in France, aside from the reasonably priced breakfasts we'd enjoyed at the hotels (this one included).





Day five - Across the border on the Toad Road to Bascara (Hotel de Les Roques) where the food rocked and the host rocked and the price was pretty rock bottom too for two rooms, plus a playground for the children! The sun was shining - bliss!

Amazingly good food - 'pica pica' in Catalyuna

Tama discovers 'planking' in a play ground in Bascara.

Day six - Before heading to Barcelona for the week, we stopped at Figueres to fulfil the MOTH's dream of seeing Dali's Museum. While not overly recommended for children (particularly on a Sunday and the place is full of people), our small people enjoyed looking at the various installations and creations for a few hours before becoming tired. Wee Master T (nearly 2yrs) points out his favourite display in his Dali book he chose from the gift store and talk continues about Dali's art and life.

Dali would have loved the eclectic Zunda Mochi in his Museum!

 Plans for Barcelona include visiting Gaudi's famous works, but today, we supermarket shop and rest in our lovely casa. Buenos noches amigos!