A Taste of Northern Spain - Bilbao and A Coruña

Our next two port stops over three days were on that flat northern coast of Spain along the Bay of Biscay.

In Bilbao we had selected a walking tour that included a stroll around the old city centre and a taste of Spanish pintxos, the Basque version of tapas. 

The ship was docked in the port town of Getxo, which evolved from a small fishing community to a residential area for the rich from Bilbao during the 1800s. Before driving into Bilbao, we had a brief drive through the town to visit the very interesting Vizcaya Bridge.

This bridge was built in 1893 by one of the students of Gustav Eiffel and is known as a 'transporter bridge'. It was built to connect two towns on opposite sides without disrupting ship traffic in the port or having to destroy parts of the towns on either side to allow for a high enough bridge. It is actually quite ingenious. A crossing doesn't take more than 2 minutes and the capsule can be stopped at either end at any time to allow ship traffic.

The capsule is actually quite large and carries both people and cars across the Nervion River. We spent a few minutes here before climbing back into the bus for our ride into Bilbao. Apparently there has only been a service interruption once since it opened, at that was for four years during the Spanish Civil War when the top was bombed and destroyed. The bridge is now a UNESCO World Heritage site.

The town on the other side

After a shuttle bus ride of about 25 minutes from Getxo, we were dropped off at the oldest part of the city, just along the Nervion River from the world famous Guggenheim Museum.

Our first view of the museum as we crossed a bridge
to the city centre

The Guggenheim Museum can be credited entirely with reviving the economy of Bilbao. With de-industrialization in the 1980s due to the loss of the shipbuilding industry in Bilbao, the city was facing high unemployment and economic hardship. Someone came up with the idea of building a museum and the Basque authorities approached the Guggenheim Foundation in New York with the plan to fund a world-class art museum. The rest, as they say, is history. The building was designed by Frank Gehry, whose team used the aerospace designing system CATIA to engineer the titanium-wrapped structure.

The museum is one of the biggest tourist draws to Bilbao, although our guide and some others said that the actual building is more impressive than the art collections inside. Many of our fellow guests made a point of going to the museum anyway and enjoyed it nonetheless.

Views through the bus window from the other side of the river as we drove by:

There is a large sitting dog 'mascot' of the museum in the front courtyard. It is in fact another art installation, named 'Puppy', from the American artist Jeff Koons. It is a huge Highland Terrier that is covered in the flowers of each season.

We left the bus and started on our stroll through old Bilbao, where our local guide gave us a comprehensive history lesson on the city and specifically the central area where we were. Bilbao was founded in 1300 as a port town and over 300 years became an industrial hub for the Basque region, first through trade and then with steel mills and shipbuilding as major industries in from the 1800s until the 1980s.

The area we were visiting is known as Casco Viejo, the medieval quarter. The streets are narrow and all of the residental apartments have small balconies, most covered with houseplants. The main level shops and restaurants were all quite busy, but then it was Sunday afternoon when we were there, and people were meeting up at the bars and coffee shops.

Buildings just off the Theatre Square. In 1983
the Nervion River flooded so that the
ground floors of all the buildings here were under water!

The Town Square, Plaza Nueva, was completed in 1851 and is a central hub for Bilbao residents. Along with shops, restaurants and bars under the colonnade, there is a Basque civic building on one side. The Royal Academy of the Basque Language occupies part of another side; the language was on the brink of extinction because it was not allowed when the area was initially annexed to Spain. More recently its cultural significance has made a resurgence and people are being encouraged to learn and speak it again.

The Sunday afternoon crowd meeting at
one of the bars

There are also lots of residential apartments in the buildings around the Plaza Nueva.

We continued our walk through Casco Viejo and finally reached our pintxos destination - La Palma, a restaurant near the Theatre Square where we began our walking tour.

Along with a glass of beer or Basque wine, we were all given a small plate of pintxos: a small skewer with olives and anchovy on bread, a little sandwich with tuna salad and, in the back on this photo, Spanish tortilla. This specialty is made with sliced potatoes cooked slowly in oil with beaten egg poured over and cooked until the egg is just set. It didn't look like a lot, but it filled us up nicely.

The Bar and sandwich counter at the restaurant

We had some free time to wander around after our pintxos break, and it was a good thing that the shops were closed. A couple of the ladies we sat with found a clothing store nearby that had some beautiful things in it - I might even have been tempted - but they might not have had time to come back the next morning before the ship left. Instead, we decided we had to try the other traditional dish from the area - Basque cheesecake! Also near the restaurant was a cheesecake shop called 'Bassk' and we couldn't resist getting a piece to take out.

One piece of cake and two forks, enjoyed
on the sidewalk.

Once we were ready to go back to the ship, things began to fall apart. Our bus didn't appear at the expected time. Fortunately our local guide was the owner of the guiding company and she called him to see where he was....It turned out that he didn't check with the office to see if he was responsible for picking us up and was nowhere near downtown. (Uh, huh. And it was Sunday afternoon.....) Our guide called the bus company which was also running the shuttle service back to the port, and arranged for the next shuttle bus to pick us up too. Crisis averted, but two couples decided they couldn't wait and looked for an Uber to get them back. We didn't see them again to find out who returned first, but our wait was long enough that our guide treated us all to gelato at her favourite creamery around the corner. That was a little chaotic, so no photo. Everyone got safely back to the ship about an hour later than our original time.

We left Bilbao at noon the next day and sailed the Bay of Biscay toward A Coruña. Since I'm not doing a food post for this blog - a lot of the same things as in the previous couple of cruises for this year, so no sense repeating myself - we decided to have lunch at Beefbar while we sailed out.

Larry decided to have the fried chicken and fries (as
this is Beefbar, the chicken was fried in beef tallow)

I had the deconstructed Caesar Salad, followed
by sea bass that I forgot to photograph. It
was still delicious!

A Mediterranean style windmill on a
nearby cliff.

At A Coruña, we decided to go to the medieval town of Betanzos. This is a typical old town of the region of Galicia and is one of the best preserved. The town was founded in 1219 as an agricultural community as it is in a fertile valley not far from the Atlantic Ocean.

Before heading out of A Coruña, we had a little sightseeing tour that led us to the Tower of Hercules, the oldest working Roman lighthouse in the world. The lighthouse was built in the 1st or 2nd Century AD during the Roman Empire. It is 55 metres high, but the top 21 metres were added during a renovation in the 1700s. The tower is now narrower than the original because the spiral ramp around the

outside was removed. You can see the remnants of this ramp winding around in between the windows. The original central core was protected intact by the naval engineer in charge, and as part of awarding the Tower of Hercules World Heritage Site status, UNESCO called the restoration 'exemplary'.

We only had enough time to walk around and take a couple of photos. In order to climb up to the top you need tickets, and probably a certain amount of time. Apparently there are about 230 steps on a steep internal spiral staircase.

We then left for Betanzos where we found a surprisingly quiet small town. In fact we wondered if anyone was even there - but then it was only about 11:00 in the morning. We had an opportunity to wander through some of the narrow streets and look at the interesting architecture. In Galicia most of the buildings have glass-covered balconies known as galerias which were used more for preserving the heat inside the home in winter. Think of them as mini sunrooms.

In this little corner is one of the oldest and best bakeries in the area. Judging by the vans going in and out it was probably the busiest place in town, too.

There is a bi-annual art festival known as Balconadas that was also happening while we were there. Canvases painted by international artists are hung from the balconies in the old town, turning it into an open-air museum.

A couple of paintings hanging on the balconies

For such a small town, there are three large churches within the centre. One of the reasons for this is that it is a rest stop on the 'English Way' or the 'Way of Saint James', one of the pilgrimage routes to Santiago de Compostela, which is about 60 kilometres away.

The Church of St. James was built in the 15th Century

The local crocheters had left a display outside
of St. James Church. Cute!!

Some of the very steep roads in town.

This one has a portal of the original town
wall at the bottom.

This is the monastery attached to the
Church of St. Francis, dating from 1387

St. Francis Church

A small square waiting for afternoon
customers. More paintings hanging
above.

Things did start to get busier around noon, and by the time we left, a number of the restaurants and bars had people sitting at their outdoor patios.

Diana the Huntress fountain in
the central square

It was a warm day and we had a little 
time, so Larry had a local beer in
a small tavern.

Looking at Betanzos, you would wonder why it was there at all. It is a service and administrative hub for the local area, and also has a thriving food tourism industry, which includes its own version of Tortilla de Betanzos, which is a little different from the one we had in Bilbao. As it is in a very fertile valley, it also has a wine industry. The local area is a distinct classified wine region of Spain. While Larry enjoyed his beer, I tried a glass of the local white Albarin, which was quite light and refreshing.

That was another lovely day in an interesting part of the world we hadn't visited before. Our ship wasn't leaving A Coruña until 5:00 the following morning, as we had a sea day before the Solar Eclipse in the evening. Even if we'd wanted to leave the ship, I wouldn't have tried. A Coruña was also on the path of totality, and lots of people were already arriving to experience it. It was probably quite busy everywhere. So we stayed on board and relaxed, gearing up for the eclipse!

Brest and Montoir de Bretagne

Thank you for waiting so long for the remaining posts for this trip! I got so distracted by things to do at home that I didn't make time to work on it. 

Our day in Brest was centered on the city's long maritime history, with a visit to the National Navy Museum. Brest is the second-largest military port after Toulon, and the Navy Museum is housed in the medieval Château de Brest.

All of Brest's medieval history is related to the castle, and it was made into a military harbour by the famous, or infamous, Cardinal Richelieu in 1631. The city was very heavily bombed during World War II; most of the city centre was rebuilt after the war. The navy is a central focus of the local economy, but as France de-industrialized after the war, it is now a big university town, including the French Naval Academy and a national university specializing in Information Technology and Telecommunications.

Our tour included a brief drive around downtown, but with narrow streets and a highway bus (kudos to the driver for navigating it all!) it is almost impossible to take a meaningful photo.

The River Penfeld runs through the city. On the right is
the Tour Tanguy, also part of the city's medieval heritage

The gardens in front of the Château and Museum

Adjacent to the museum is the Naval Academy. 

Some of the original buildings inside the chateau

A look over the river at the Pont de Recouvrance, a
vertical lift bridge operating since 1954.

Maritime artifacts include ships' bow and stern decorations as well
as other elaborate wooden carvings.

This would have adorned the stern of a ship in
the 1800s.

That was about it for our visit to Brest. It was a bit of a break after all the walking at Mont-Saint-Michel.

On the following day we were in St.-Nazaire, in Montoir-de-Bretagne, where we took a tour to another medieval city: Angers.

Our first stop, though, was a little outside of the city at the one-and-only distillery for Cointreau Liqueur. We had a tour of the distillery, where they make more than just Cointreau, learned about the company's long history, and even had a tasting of a couple of their new 'flavours'.

The distilling room for Cointreau. Considering
how popular it is worldwide, I was surprised
that the stills were so small.

Our tour guide explaining the
Cointreau distilling process

Another view from the mezzanine where we saw
a brief film on the history of Cointreau and the
cocktails that made it world famous

This is a sample of the dried orange peel that is
the base ingredient. The peels originate in orange
groves in Brazil, Tunisia, Morocco and Ghana.

Learning about Cointreau and how it is made was actually quite fascinating. The original Cointreau, Adolphe, was a confectioner who decided to expand into liqueurs as they were becoming very popular in the mid-1800s. This was quite successful, with a wide range of fruit liqueurs on offer. Adolphe's nephew, Edouard, finally succeeded in creating the clear, balanced and concentrated orange liqueur in 1885, and immediately registered the trademarks for the name, Cointreau, and the distinctive, for that time, square bottle. He had been searching for an alternative to the grainy, overly sweet orange liqueur from the Dutch island of Curaçao. Only four years later, in 1889, they installed a still at the World's Fair in Paris, which had 32 million visitors, and won a medal for the quality of the liqueur.

Adolphe and Edouard-Jean along with
bottles of some of their original liqueurs. The most
popular of these was Guignolet, a cherry liqueur

.

The advertising history of Cointreau is just as interesting as the liqueur itself. They created a 'Pierrot' Cointreau, the uniquely French sad-faced clown, as their brand mascot. The very first film commercial in history was made by the Lumière brothers featuring Pierrot Cointreau in 1898.

I like this one! It says it all- orange and
square bottle!

There's a huge gallery of advertising drawings

After Edouard's death in 1923, his sons and his wife, Louisa, took over the business. Louisa developed social policies for the company, and became a social force in her own right. She ultimately was an Officer of the Legion of Honor of France.

Cointreau became a household name in 1948 when the Margarita was developed in Acapulco by an American socialite who claimed, 'A Margarita without Cointreau isn't worth its salt'. The next big cocktail to use Cointreau, the Cosmopolitan, was created in 1988.

In order to maintain the consistent taste of Cointreau from crop to crop of orange peel, they have a Master Distiller, the 'Nose'. A woman, Carole Quinton, currently holds this position, and has a huge responsibility. We asked about a successor if she should retire, and our guide said that training someone for the position takes a number of years.

In 1989, Cointreau merged with Remy Martin to create the huge Remy-Cointreau conglomerate that produces many different spirits all over the world. Both were family owned concerns and now between them own over 50% of the publicly-traded company.

At the tasting, everyone had a glass of Cointreau Fizz, a very refreshing and simple cocktail made with only Cointreau, fresh lime juice, and sparkling water over ice. After that we could try Cointreau Noir, which includes some Remy Martin cognac, and Cointreau Spicy, which has chili pepper essence in it - and is VERY spicy! If you're interested in making cocktails with Cointreau, there is an extensive list of them on Cointreau's website.

A Cointreau Fizz made at home while
I write this post!

Rather than buying a bottle of Cointreau we purchased a small jar of caramel topping made with Cointreau and some Cointreau orange infused loose tea.

So after that 10:00 a.m. visit, and hoping we would all be awake for the rest of the tour, we boarded the bus for the drive into the old town of Angers.

Our bus dropped us off by the Château d'Angers and our local guide took us on a walk through the narrow medieval streets to the Cathedral Saint-Maurice. It is a very impressive structure outside, with a fairly new very modern portico protecting the original painted one.

The old being protected by the new.

The interior is known for its stained-glass windows, but the organ loft and altar are also well worth noting. In fact, the altar is a much smaller version of the one in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome.

After our visit to the Cathedral, we had free time to grab some lunch on our own. The small cafes across from the chateau seemed a little too elaborate, so we ended up at a bakery that some of our fellow cruisers recommended. We shared a ham and cheese baguette, just enough for each of us when cut in half, and I couldn't resist the huge Pain au Chocolat, so we split one of those for dessert. We were in a bit of a rush and the bakery was quite busy; otherwise I would have taken a few photos. Nonetheless, everything was nice and fresh and delicious.

We had enough time to wander through some of those narrow streets before we had to meet back up.

This lovely kitty was relaxing under the trees
near the chateau.

Our guide led us into the grounds of the Chateau after our lunch break and we checked out some of the more important buildings.

The walls of the Chateau. The old moat
is now a lovely garden.

The courtyard

the chapel

The Royal Residence

The view over the Maine River from the Chateau walls

 The biggest draw here at the Chateau, though, is the Apocalypse Tapestry. This tapestry, which was commissioned by Duke Louis I of Anjou in 1375, is a depiction of the Book of Revelation, with Saint John included in each panel. The paintings the tapestry is based on were made by Jean de Bruges and woven in Paris by Nicolas Bataille - and probably hundreds of weavers. It was completed in only 5 years during the Hundred Years War, between 1377 and 1382, with an original length of 460 feet (!!). Now only about 335 feet survive, with the rest torn up and used for everything from floor mats to tree protection during the French Revolution.

It is an immense tapestry, and quite unknown beside the likes of the Bayeux Tapestry. Like the Bayeux Tapestry, it is now in the UNESCO Memory of the World register since 2023. Here are some photos and a video of some of the panels:

Placing the pieces in order based on the Book of Revelation
left a number of empty spaces.

In order to really get a sense of the scale of this tapestry and how incredible it was to complete it in such a short time, you have to look at the video:

After viewing the tapestry, we headed back to the bus for the drive back to St. Nazaire and the ship.

It was an interesting sail-out that evening, as we passed the shipyard of Chantiers d'Atlantique on the way out to sea from the mouth of the Loire River. The most important fact for us though was that Crystal Serenity was built at that same shipyard from 2001 to 2003, so she was, in effect, visiting her birthplace for a day.

Sailing past the construction docks at Chantiers d'Atlantique. Currently they are building two MSC ships - the World Europa still waiting for more cabin sections to arrive, and the World Asia, almost ready to head out, as far as we could tell. Both are much, much larger than Crystal Serenity!

The town of St. Nazaire with lots of small sailboats at anchor.

And finally, the coastline becoming rocky as we reached the Atlantic Ocean.

We were invited to Captain's Quarters for cocktails, as we are on most cruises, once we were at sea. It wasn't just us; it is usually a larger group of people along with some of the ship's officers to meet and mingle for 45 minutes. Our captain, Vincent Taillard, was actually from Nantes, one of the larger cities in this area. I had noticed as we were sailing out on the river that there was a private speedboat racing along beside us for a while, so I asked Captain Vincent if that was someone he knew. And it was! His family members had come to see us off, and he had given the ship's horn a quick 'toot' to acknowledge them. Unfortunately the French coast guard had also noticed them, and their small boat was on its way to wave them off. I think Captain Vincent may have spoken to them and they let the boat go a little further. The captain was going on vacation at the end of our cruise and would be seeing them all again in about a week.

So that was our day in Montoir de Bretagne and our goodbye to France. Our next stops were in Spain, leading up to the Solar Eclipse.