York rolls out a magical Christmas shopping weekend

Good PR is a powerful thing.

Early last December I caught a TV news report from York, where a spokesman walked around the city and made a pitch that ... having recovered from and expanded since the city's devastating floods of 2015 ... they now hosted the best Christmas market in the country. Those three beautifully filmed minutes worked their way into my brain. I had to check it out.

Were the markets so much better than my local options that they justified the 5+ hours it takes to get there? Probably not. The news report had implied a series of markets stretching throughout the town. The reality is more compact and featured fewer vendors than I expected. York remains, however, one of England's most charming cities. While the markets didn't extend through the whole of the ancient walled centre, the tasteful decorations did. The weekend we visited also featured an ice sculpture trail.

York is a gorgeous town to wander through at any time of year, thanks to its rich history and sparse incursions by modern bad taste. Vast swathes of town look as they would have in the 1760s. Add Handel's Messiah in York Minster, a remarkable Georgian townhouse decked out for the holidays and what may be the best Christmas shop in England, and the combined experience kicked my festive mood into high gear. Here are the highlights.

THE MARKET
The main market runs for about 300 metres on pedestrianised Parliament Street, running from its start at Coppergate to St. Sampson's Square. There were between 60 and 80 traditional, Alpine-style chalets; it felt roughly twice the size of our local market at Winchester. Add a sprinkling of chalets at the centre of the modern Coppergate shopping centre, all the regular booths in the Shambles market and a pop-up marquee filled with arts and crafts vendors beside that, and the shopping possibilities start to get impressive.

With the exception of shoulder-to-shoulder crowds Saturday afternoon, it was a lot less crowded than Winchester. Most of the Parliament street stalls held the same stuff you can find at Christmas markets up and down the country: hand-crafted outerwear; specialty cheeses, small batch gins and fruit liquors; South American and African imports; Christmas potpourri; wooden kitchen items; star-shaped light shades; food stands serving up mulled wine, sausages and doughnuts. ( I sometimes think there's a factory in China churning this stuff out for similar markets around the world.) There was, however, a slightly higher percentage of local vendors than down South. My favourites included one lady who spent all year making decorations with gilt pine cones, ribbons and bows; a guy who created canine Christmas wreaths from dog treats and a small company that makes authentic Viking drinking horns and wrought iron stands at a fraction of the price you pay in museum shops. (York has a rich Viking history, making the last one deeply appropriate.)

Curiously, there were fewer food and drink options than at other markets. The favourite was clearly the Scandinavian-themed pop-up bar and restaurant called "Thor's TeePee", but the queue was so long every time we passed that we never even considered it.

JORVIK VIKING CENTRE
Distinguished in the UK for being the first cultural attraction to install a Disney-style ride, Jorvik is more of an interpretive centre than a museum. Though the entry is within an ugly 1980s-built shopping mall ... one of the few places within York's city walls blighted by modern architecture ... it sits on top of the actual excavation site of the Viking town centre. After buying your tickets you descend to a dimly lit room where a glass floor lets you walk over part of the dig. You can watch films of the excavations, which spread across a much larger area before the shopping centre came in on top of it. You then board the ride, which takes you through a highly-accurate reconstruction of 10th century Jorvik populated with animatronic people, dogs, chickens and pigs all created from specific skeletons that have been reconstructed from relevant finds. It's all very lifelike, complete with smells, sound effects and the characters speaking the wide range of languages that would have been in use then. You exit the ride into a gallery of display cases filled with actual artefacts of the world you've just seen.

I remember being terribly impressed the first time I visited in 1985, just a year after opening. After 32 years of experiencing advancements in museum display technology, and the past eight steeped in the Viking heritage and Danish travel that came with marrying into the Bencards, I'm less impressed. While the ride is still good, the gallery at the end is a disappointment. It's far too cramped for the crowds coming through. Too many display cases in the walls, where you have to queue up to get close to them, for example, rather than free-standing for 360-degree circulation around. The artefacts aren't particularly impressive, and they don't do much with technology to bring them to life. Jorvik is a very long way behind Denmark's Jelling Viking Centre. A real shame, since it's only recently reopened after 18 months of refurbishment from flood damage. They don't seem to have taken the opportunity for any significant improvements. So ... worth a visit if you like Vikings and haven't spent a lot of time in Denmark, but questionable value for your £10.25. (Although that does get you repeat admission for a year. Anyone want two adult tickets good 'til December 2018?)

YORK MINSTER
It's one of England's blockbuster cathedrals and, as its archbishop is 2nd only to Canterbury, regularly holds services and events of national importance. Since English cathedrals charge admission (£10 for York, good for 1 year), it's always worth checking the event schedule. Pay for a concert, have a wander for free. We stumbled onto a glorious performance of Handel's Messiah. The only drawback: the last available seats were in the back row, where regular gusts from the door lowered the temperature in an already frigid building. This is, I suspect, is the most I've ever suffered for art. It was worth it. When everyone stands and the strains of the Hallelujah chorus fill the air, it's a religious experience in any setting. Hearing in a great cathedral makes it that much better.

Before the concert and at the intermission we were able to wander around. York has some of the cleanest lines of England's great cathedrals. There are no chantry chapels, sparse carved decoration, few paintings. Just white walls, a mostly-white ceiling and soaring gothic arches. It's a study in elegant simplicity. There's more detail to take in around the crossing beneath the spire. The choir screen is a magnificent genealogy of the Plantagenet kings. The restored roofs of the transepts feature some gorgeous bosses, and there are colourful Victorian neo-gothic chapels built into the arches of the transepts. The round chapter house is well worth a look. At this time of year, the most magnificent sight is the giant advent wreath, complete with real candles the height of a man, hanging below the crossing.

KATH WOHLFAHRT 

Perhaps the best Christmas shop in the world, and certainly a testament to the idea that nobody does this holiday better than the Bavarians. This German Christmas experience is even more fun because it  happens inside a rambling, historic half-timbered English town house from the late Middle Ages. Even if you don't want to shop, it's worth having a wander to check out the marvellous historic interiors. 

There are nutcrackers, cuckoo clocks, candle-driven spinning pyramids, incense smokers, nativity scenes and holiday linens ... in addition to at least four large rooms of tree decorations. There's one just for the kind of hand-blown, hand-painted glass ornaments brought back into fashion by Christopher Radko, portraying a staggering variety of subjects. All staffed by helpful ladies in dirndls and loden jackets. It's the company's only outlet in the UK. The only thing that could make it better? An adjacent German beer hall. (York is full of charming pubs, but we couldn't get a seat in any of them on this packed Saturday.) 

My husband proved a frustrating, though ultimately useful, restraint. Without him, I would have easily laid out several hundred pounds on Christmas decorations we don't need. Instead, we spent £20 on a blown glass tree topper we did. Everyone was happy.

FAIRFAX HOUSE

It takes either extreme audacity or supreme confidence to hang the claim that you are England's best Georgian townhouse outside your door. There's a lot of competition, and I was skeptical that anyone could beat Bath's No. 1 Royal Crescent. But I'll give my vote to Fairfax House. It's a slightly older style than Bath's restrained neo-classicism. Fairfax House's decoration dates from the 1760s and feels 20 years older: there's a heavy whiff of Baroque here. (Unsurprising for a proud, provincial Roman Catholic family.) It's worth visiting for the progression of ornate plaster ceilings alone.

The house is beautifully restored and furnished to the state it would have been in when the last Viscount Fairfax did the place up as an urban party palace in an attempt to entertain his way to a fiancé for his daughter. He didn't succeed, and she sold the place after his death. So the furnishings are representative, mostly from a collection that chocolate magnate Noel Terry willed to the house on his death in 1980. 

It's a fluke that the place still exists at all. Used as a club and cinema in the 1930s, it suffered removal of interior walls and suffocation of those glorious ceilings with high gloss paint. While the removal took thousands of painful hours, curators think the synthetic coat preserved exquisite details. A quirk of leases and local government saw the house shuttered, but unable to be occupied or torn down, through the '60s and '70s. Probably another lucky escape. Its rediscovery and reconstruction in the '80s is a fascinating story that well-informed room stewards will be happy to tell you. They also spin tales of Fairfax family history and have deep knowledge of how the furnishings would have worked in every day usage. I was completely captivated; my top sightseeing pick in York.

WHERE WE STAYED: NOVOTEL

Novotel is a pet-friendly hotel chain. They don't publicise it, but all members of the chain allow dogs for an extra fee of £10 per pet. This one has ample parking, generously-sized modern rooms, speedy free wi-fi and is a 10-minute walk to the centre of town. Even better for dog owners, it's also on the River Ouse and opens at the back onto a long river walk complete with street lamps and rubbish bins. Everything a dog owner could want.

V&A's opera show is a wonder of modern storytelling

There was a point so outrageously fabulous during the V&A's new opera exhibition that I found myself quivering with the pure, unadulterated joy of a small child on Christmas morning.

It's in the section devoted to Handel's Rinaldo. The exhibit displays wrap around a disused stage with early18th century scenery piled in the wings, ropes and pulleys hanging from the rafters. Suddenly, you hear the hubbub of crowd noise, the tap-tap-tap of a baton, and scenery moves into place. As the overture rises, layers of canvas-on-wood waves ... one behind another to a painted horizon ... churn in a circular motion, creating a remarkably convincing illusion of a swelling sea. Rinaldo's boat crosses from one side, a sea deity rides from the other, while scenery clouds part to reveal a sun shining down on a glittering foreign city. It is magical. And exactly the way the London audience would have seen it upon its debut in 1711.

It's one of many moments in this blockbuster show that stirred powerful emotions from glee to dread. Great opera should make you feel, and this masterful collaboration between the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Royal Opera House does that with aplomb. This is a great exhibition because of the way it sheds light on its topic, and because of the objects it brings together, but mostly because it has combined design and technology to give us an immersive experience that embodies the very best of modern storytelling.

You know you're in for something special when you get given a set of top-quality wireless headphones with your ticket, head towards a lavish red curtain and find Tony Pappano, music director of the ROH, welcoming you in. From there, you wander through seven operatic experiences, exploring each production in tandem with the city in which it premiered and thus the political and social trends of its time. These spaces spiral around a final, central area where a series of large screens show off the state of opera in the modern world.

While opera combines many art forms, the music comes first. So giving this exhibit a stirring soundtrack is the foundation of its success. The sound quality is excellent, the choice of musical excerpts beautiful and the technology that shifts you automatically from one audio element to the next is almost flawless. (There were a few times when I stood too close to a section divider and had the next opera cutting in prematurely, but you quickly get the hang of coming back into the main path.)

There are plenty of fascinating things in cases to look at, from beautiful instruments to lavish costumes and original scores. Set design has always been a critical part of opera, and it plays a significant role here. In the Marriage of Figaro section, they've brought in a whole wall from the set of the ROH's highly acclaimed production. In the bit on Strauss' Salome, heavy with Freudian associations, you can take a seat on an oversized version of Freud's famous, Turkey-carpet covered couch to watch the action. Labels on the walls of each section capture key points in snackable bites; design for the social media generation. A risky move ... it could have seemed a cheap attempt to get down with the "yoof" ... but it was actually a beautifully conceived way to get essential facts across quickly and simply. This is worlds away from the dry, academic labels that usually accompany worthy museum shows.

In each case, there are videos of real performances to add to your understanding. Beyond the exhibition, the BBC has produced a two-part show with Lucy Worsley on the same topic. The V&A's web site is full of additional information and short films. The seriously keen can even sign up for classes at the museum. This is the embodiment of the modern, multi-media, multi-channel exhibition.

It's not all perfect. The format of seven premiers in seven cities is an interesting concept, but ultimately creates a rod for their own backs. It works beautifully for the early operas. We experience Monteverdi's Coronation of Poppea at the same time the decadent opulence of Venice gives birth to the art form. Handel's Rinaldo in London sees opera grow up and move beyond Italy as the English capital grows to world prominence, while Mozart's Marriage of Figaro puts Enlightenment trends in Vienna on stage. Verdi's Nabucco premier in Milan is unquestionably linked to the Italian unification movement, but we start to lack balance here as this part of the show becomes more about the politics than the opera. (Although I found one of my favourite displays here: a photographic wall of 150 Italian opera houses, backlit and shining like precious jewels.)

We really slide off the rails when Wagner's Tannhauser gets paired with Louis Napoleon's Paris. True,  a quirk of history did throw this opera and city together; but it's an uncomfortable forced marriage. Wagner and his work was so inextricably linked to Germany, and the role of "Mad" King Ludwig is one of opera's greatest off-stage stories. To do Wagner and his enormous impact on the art form justice, we deserved one of the Munich premieres. Instead, it felt like the curators wanted to avoid the troubling German nationalist legacy, and needed to wedge Paris in somewhere, so pushed the two together.

Then it's on to Dresden, where I actually enjoyed exploring Strauss' Salome more than I thought I would. Though the Dresden tie seemed completely incidental; most of the trends we were talking about here came out of Vienna. While I'm still not enough of a convert to want to see a full production of this challenging (both musically and topically) production, linking it to the world's growing awareness of female sexuality and teenage angst was fascinating. Oscar Wilde's play and Beardsley's prints (beautiful but disturbing) show how Salome's story was so much bigger, and on trend, than the one opera.

Unfortunately, the final section on Shostakovich's Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk (paired with Leningrad) risked destroying all the joy that had come before. The plot is distressing, the political reality of Stalin's Russia horrible and the music so discordantly awful that I had to take off my headphones. Porgy and Bess would have been a much more satisfying, and palatable, take on the move toward modern opera, but I assume its launch in Boston ... hardly a world-renown opera town ... took it out of contention.

Sadly, I was so disturbed by the Shostakovich that I didn't have the mental energy to spend much time in the final room with the screens exploring opera since 1945. Having resumed my headphones, I entered to a blast of discordant notes, violent images and ugly, industrial set design that reinforced my ingrained prejudices that the art form has steadily gone to hell since the death of Puccini. I would have liked to have been convinced otherwise. My greatest complaint about the otherwise wonderful show is that they didn't use this fantastic opportunity to change my mind.

Instead, I slipped quickly back into the Wagner section, closed my eyes and listened again to the overture to Tannhauser. Then I took off my headphones and walked through the modern bit in silence.    Emotional equilibrium recovered, my final verdict remains overwhelmingly positive. This unique exploration of the art form will intrigue anyone who's even mildly interested in opera, while the topic, format and design will delight people fascinated by how we tell stories.

Opera: Passion, Power and Politics is on at London's Victoria and Albert Museum through 25 February. It's a good idea to book tickets in advance, especially on weekends or for Friday night openings.

Guggenheim Bilbao makes modern art accessible, powerful and fun

The Northwestern Girls' Trip has been taken by a trio for 15 years. Brought together by our university, we discovered that we share remarkably similar styles in the pace, composition, favoured destinations and hotel styles of our holiday destinations. Trios can make accommodation tricky, however, so we've always been open to the addition of a fourth. But where to find her?

This year, we welcomed Suzy Christopher. Though not a Northwestern graduate, I hired her out of Cardiff's excellent journalism programme back in 1999 and she worked for me for years at both my PR agency and BT. She's also become a dear friend. And since, during those working years, I passed on everything I could about the art of journalism, we all decided to convey upon her an honorary degree from the Medill School of Journalism so we can officially call her a "Northwestern Girl". As her initiation into the clan, she's guest-written today's blog post.

As we arrived in Bilbao, the Guggenheim rose up on our right like a slightly bonkers, silver-scaled galleon. We learned from our guide later on that its architect, Frank Gehry, drew his inspiration from the city’s sea-faring/fishing heritage, which makes this first impression rather apt. The building is stunning ... a work of art in its own right ... and merits closer inspection. 

There are several large sculptures around its perimeter, including Jeff Koons’ Puppy – a huge floral west highland terrier ‘sitting’ at the gallery’s entrance plaza. Admittedly we couldn’t see him in all his spectacular glory on the day of our visit, as he was getting a new coat of flowers! But the hoarding around him, shielding the gardeners at work, showed us what we were missing. 

Walking down some steps to the left of the main entrance, towards the riverside, we came across a tower of silver baubles ... Anish Kapoor’s Tall Tree ... and in the distance we could see one of Louise Bourgeois’ spiders. As a self-confessed arachnophobe, I admit that I didn’t want to get too close to that one! 

Above it we could see the bridge we’d driven across minutes earlier. We learned from our guide Mikel (read about him and the rest of our day with him here) that the red-arched structure over the bridge ... clearly visible from our vantage point by the river ... is also an art installation. This is clearly a city that takes modern art seriously. 

Moving inside the gallery, I, for one, felt that the exhibits couldn’t be as interesting as the exterior of the building. But I was very happy to be proved wrong. 

We started on the third (top) floor with the ‘masterpieces’ – a permanent collection. On first glance this is a sparse collection of pieces that could easily seem a little ‘so what?’, but on closer inspection and quiet contemplation the collection is much richer. It includes signature works by leading post-war and contemporary artists including Mark Rothko, Yves Klein and Anselm Kiefer. 

(The collection is well chosen for those wary of modern art. Even the more challenging pieces are visually beautiful, while the audio guide that comes with your admission gives excellent insight. Klein's Large Blue Anthropometry is a gorgeous celebration of blue and white: he captured movement by having naked models lie and roll on the canvas. Kinky, but lovely results. Getting to know local sculptor Eduardo Chillida was a joy: he combines natural rock with smooth planes and uses what's not there (the air itself) as another element for beguiling results. Keifer's The Land of the Two Rivers (above) was my favourite in the museum and I'd happily come visit it regularly if I were a local. Using heavily encrusted blue. green, white and black paint, he creates something between painting and sculpture that's a representation of the land between the Tigris and Euphrates. There are sophisticated levels of political commentary here, but you can also just stand and get lost in the beauty of the landscape, which actually seems to get less abstract the more you stare at it. Modern art at its best. -Ed.)

When we visited (28th October 2017) there were also two visiting exhibitions: Bill Viola and Anni Albers. I confess I only bobbed my head into the Albers exhibition, but lingered a while in the Viola show. It proved intriguing. 

The first room I entered really challenged me – there was a revolving screen in the centre of the room, spinning 360 degrees on an axis, which forced me to flatten my back to the wall. The images on the screen depicted open heart surgery. Both the physical and visual discomfort led me to move quickly into the next room. The screen here showed a man-made pool in a lush, green environment that reminded me of a rainforest or tropical retreat. After watching in silence for what seemed like a five minutes, but may have been a minute or less, I witnessed a man walking up to the edge of the pool and then – several frames later – jumping. The image of the figure in mid-air hung motionless for several seconds and then I saw ripples in the pool below – it was like a magical ‘Harry Potter’ image. 

My final and most impactful memory of the Viola exhibition was a video piece with two screens, side by side. One (on the left) captured a beautiful, serene scene of a woman lighting candles in the darkness ... almost church-like in atmosphere ... while the second screen (on the right) showed a man in the distance, again in darkness, walking forcefully towards a fire which was right in the foreground of the screen. I sat for a while on a bench in front of both screens and as the sequence progressed, the woman had lit all the candles and walked towards the camera, seeming to cross a shallow pool of water, and the man walked up to – and through – the fire towards the camera. I wondered if it was meant to depict heaven (on the left) and hell (on the right) but what surprised me most was that I felt a tear roll down my cheek. I don’t know why exactly. But isn’t that the point of art? To evoke emotion in the viewer? 

After feeling quite overwhelmed by Viola I headed down to the ground floor to experience the largest exhibition within the gallery – Richard Serra’s The Matter Of Time. Made up of eight ginormous steel structures that fill the entire ground floor space, these sculptures elicit shrieks of delight and wonder from the visitors moving through the various coils and waves that make up each piece. I saw visitors of all ages – from 70 years to seven months old – enjoying the experience. 

I couldn’t think of a more exhilarating way to finish a gallery visit. I experienced sheer delight and left beaming. Suffice to say we were all surprised that we’d enjoyed the interior of the Guggenheim and the exhibits we’d each, individually, chosen to spend time with, more than we thought before we went inside. 

The photographs really don’t do it justice – please go and discover for yourself what moves/surprises/excites you.

Bilbao & the Basque coast is a tour that will leave you wanting more

It was a travel company's mistake in Iceland that first opened my eyes to the exquisite treat of travelling with a private guide. Since that adventure with the stalwart Viking Halle, the annual girls' trip has splurged where possible on local experts to give us deeper, more meaningful experiences than we can create ourselves ... even with our prodigious combined travel experience.

Mikel and Ikusnahi Travel now join our list of precious memories. If you are heading to the BasqueCountry and are up for investing in something beyond the ordinary, these are the guys to call.

In Basque, the company name means a desire or willingness to see; a perfect summary of the ethos of this born-and-bred locally team. We peppered Mikel with questions all day, ranging across areas as diverse as modern politics, geology, religious history, architecture, food and art, and he never missed a beat. Once he realised we were curious about pretty much everything, he was a steady font of information. In fact, had we booked Ikusnahi for Day 1, instead of Day 3, I suspect we might have been trying to arrange a second session in the same trip. We all came away with loads of ideas for the next excursion.

The one we booked, however, is probably the most obvious for the first-time visitor to San Sebastián (Donostia in the native Basque): A visit to the Guggenheim in Bilbao, plus a few charming villages along the coast.  Sure, you can do that on your own, but you'll have to get to the bus terminal, take the long and tedious bus ride, make your way to the museum, deal with the ticket queue and then make your way home. Without any picturesque coastal drives.

Instead, Mikel picked us up from our hotel in a generously sized van that gave the four of us room to sprawl. He filled the hour to Bilbao with fascinating overview information about Basque history and culture, noted points of interest along the way, and prepared us for the striking first sight of the museum as you emerge from a tunnel. It's one of the most photographed buildings in the world, but nothing can really prepare you for the outrageous, awe-inspiring statement it makes, dominating the scene like some alien princess' castle.

Guggenheim Bilbao
We hopped out right in front and had our first look while Mikel parked the van. I knew that architect Frank Gehry chose the undulating shapes and metal scales to mimic the fish that made Bilbao's fortune. It's one thing to know, another thing to experience. As the clouds scud across the sky, they
reflect on the metal and the whole building seems to writhe like a school of cod dancing away from Basque fishermens' nets. It's extraordinary. Mikel walked us around the outside while explaining the history of the town, the building, and how they influenced each other. Today, it's hard to imagine that this vibrant, art-filled riverwalk, enlivened by clarinet-playing buskers and within view of a long line of gracious mansions, offices and public spaces, was once a derelict industrial district. And then, though the magic of Ikusnahi, we slipped in the riverside group entrance ... skipping a queue that stretched at least 500 metres by the time we left.

To my great surprise, the inside is just as good as the outside. Not just architecturally. This is a joyous, fascinating and carefully curated collection, presented in a way to make it accessible to all.

Frequent readers will be dropping their jaws in shock at this point. Yes, I dislike modern art. I've never been to a modern art museum that filled me with anything but a desire to leave quickly. (Unless I'm heading to the Tate's restaurant. Excellent views.) Until now. I could have stayed for at least another hour. For me, that's a revolutionary statement.

To read more about why the Guggenheim is so magical, check out the next story, when my guest blogger Suzy Christopher will offer her take.

But we couldn't stay. We had a date with a movie set.

Zumaia
Turns out Dragonstone is on the Basque coast. Game of Thrones fans (three of the four on our trip) will swoon with jealousy. The familiar set is actually a pastiche of two sites. Gaztelugatxe, a small islet off the coast, is connected to the mainland by a madly-winding stone bridge that ... on television ... leads up to the brooding castle and has been the site of so many dramatic conversations in Season 7. The atmospheric, cliff-lined beach lying at the foot of those stairs that is home to the cave with the White Walker paintings and the dragon glass hoard is actually in Zumaia. It would have been impossible to do both and our final destination for the day, as they're separated by about 80 kilometres of coast with no fast road connections. So we headed for Zumaia.

The reason the producers picked this place is immediately obvious. It's a geological blockbuster. Famous for a particular rock formation called flysch, these layers of compacted sediment were pushed upwards in a violent meeting of continents millions of years ago. The result is other-wordly, jagged strips of the rock, as if the cliffs had been constructed of giant sheets of blackened, upthrust mille feuille pastry. Horizontal lines of stone continue out to sea and cut back from the cliff tops. On the heights, however, they're softened by rich green grasses and shrubs. The tiny, ancient chapel of San Telmo perches on the headland, a waypoint on the ancient pilgrimage route to Campostella.

This was the second place we had to leave too soon. Zumaia deserves a day. A morning to scramble down onto that magnificent beach. Time to poke around the shops in the charming town below the cliffs before a lingering lunch. Then an afternoon's hike along the cliff tops.

But there was more to do. We headed east on the N634: a beautiful, winding thread suspended between cliff base and water. I suspect you could spend many happy hours simply driving this coast. We stopped half an hour later in Getaria, where a picture-postcard medieval village clambered up a hillside above a sheltered harbour.

Getaria

There's a unique Romanesque church here, built so that the whole place slopes precipitously back and down from the altar. Legend has it that the ruling nobles, parachuted in from Spain, insisted on the unusual architecture so that they'd always be physically above everyone else. I've never seen another church like it. Nor have I seen another place where the church actually bridges the main street: you walk through a tunnel beneath it towards the harbour, able to peer through grates into the crypt.

Cobbled streets wind past shops, prosperous old merchants' houses and nobles' palaces. This was the home town of Juan Sebastián Elcano, the first ship's captain to circumnavigate the globe, and they've honoured him with two statues. One stands proudly above the harbour, looking out to sea. Another stands before the town hall, looking South towards Spain. Is that a smirk of superiority the sculptor crafted into his face? Probably. The town's other famous son is fashion designer Cristobal Balenciaga. There's a museum to him here. Yet again, a place that could have beguiled us for hours.

The real point of our visit, however, was a late lunch. (The exploration came after.)

On a coast already famous for its cuisine and its seafood, Getaria is where the locals come to eat fish. It's also known for some of the finest txakoli, the gently sparkling local white wine. (Indeed, the Txomin Etxaniz we had here was the best of the trip.)

We ate at Kaia Kaipe, where the highly-polished wooden panelling and the expansive views over the harbour made it feel like we were inside a luxury super yacht rather than an ancient stone building. For the first, and only, time on our trip we were entirely surrounded by locals ... including a family group of about 30 around one enormous table, celebrating a couple's anniversary with gifts and songs.

Two decades ago, when I was still a full-blooded American pursuing high-intensity tourism, I couldn't have imagined taking two hours out of the heart of a sightseeing day to linger over lunch. Nor paying for a private guide to share than down time. Now, I see it as an essential part of the experience. Mikel knew the menu and the owners. Explained the local nuances. Ordered stuff that was off the menu, including an enormous whole turbot the five of us shared as our main course. We'd been doing a great job exploring local cuisine, naturally. But eating with a local made the experience that much richer. And the turbot ... which had doubtless still been swimming happily the day before ... was exceptional.

By the time we finished our stroll around town and stopped in a gourmet shop to buy txakoli and some of the famed local salt, it was time to head back to Donostia. One last advantage of our own guide: he could drop us wherever we wished. The day had been so wonderful we weren't ready to head home. So Mikel dropped us at the Gintoneria (already covered here), where we plunged into another round of exotic cocktails and reviewed the wonders of our day.

Mikel gave us a glimpse of a whole new world. Every one of us agreed we're keen to return and discover more.

Snacker's paradise: Donostia's pintxos are worth a culinary trip

A friend told me that San Sebastián ... Donostia in the local Basque language ... has more bars per square foot than anywhere else in the world. I haven't been able to verify that, but it seems perfectly credible. In many streets in the Old Town bars out-number shops, and while they're not quite so profuse in other districts, you're never far from some convivial R&R.

This is not because Donostia is some boozy capital of the party world, but rather because of the delightful local tradition of pintxos.

These gourmet snacks, available in every bar, make drinking here a voyage of culinary discovery. Whether you partake as a filler to get you through to those famously late Spanish dinners, use them as a buffet lunch or snack the day away, pintxos have become a reason to visit San Sebastián/Donostia in their own right. I've encountered nothing else quite like them in my travels.

Pintxo bars come in a bewildering variety. Many are classic Iberian watering holes: wood panelled, slightly-battered furnishings, hams hanging from the ceiling. Others are pictures of modern design, with sleek glass, marble and artsy lighting. Some have quirky themes. A few have the look of uninspiring fast food restaurants, and some are so bare of décor you feel like they're simply allowing you to queue up in a corner of their industrial kitchen. Get away from the profusion of tourists in the Old Town and you'll start to pick up a feel similar to a good British pub: these are watering holes for locals, far more about conviviality and community than alcohol.

The variety of atmosphere made our wandering more interesting, but had nothing to do with the quality of the food. It's uniformly good. I didn't taste a think I didn't like: although I'm content to let sea urchins lie un-harvested, and I don't see the point of deep frying foie gras. To have a more expert opinion on the food, however, let's here from someone more experienced with the Iberian peninsula.

Hillary Berger, fellow traveller on our Northwestern Girls' Trips for 17 years, spent a year of university in Seville and has been all over Spain and Portugal in the years since for both work and play. Here's her take on our pintxo experience:

Donostia is rightly known for its gastronomy, including one of its local specialties: the "pintxo" (pronounced "peen-cho"). But what exactly does it mean to eat pintxos? I have travelled many times to Spain, and assumed it would be similar to a pub crawl where you order tapas at each place. It turns out in some ways it is, but in many ways it's not.

First, a little history from our tour guide Mikel. A pintxo is a Basque speciality, originating from the area's fishermen. Their work fishing meant they would keep odd hours, and would often find themselves celebrating the end of their working day in the local bar ... at 11am. To ensure they weren't drinking on an empty stomach, these bars started preparing small snacks to accompany their libation of choice. These snacks typically consisted of food cooked in the kitchen and served on a slice of bread, held together with a toothpick. The toothpick "pierced" the food, hence the name "pintxo" which is a take on the Spanish verb pinchar - "to pierce".

In San Sebastián, pintxos appeared to be served everywhere but our tastings were primarily in the Old Town. On walking into our first bar we were in equal parts amazed and confused. Amazed because before us on the bar countertops were plates and plates piled high with delicious-looking pintxos. Confused because how on earth would we choose, and also how do you go about ordering these tasty morsels?

We started off focussing on the pintxos we could see, typically called pintxos frios or cold pintxos. These are piled high with various combinations of local delicacies like shrimp, ham, crab, eggs, peppers, anchovies, tortilla, cheese, sardine, mayonnaise, etc. Some are open-faced sandwiches and others are in a small baguette (the latter are also called bocadillos).

Next step is to work up the courage to approach the bar and order, as very few of these bars have table service. First order a glass of wine or a cerveza, then ask for a plate. (The local wine, traditional with pintxos, is a lightly sparkling white called txakoli.) On receiving the plate, essentially you help yourself! Take as many as you want, the bar staff have some magical power that allows them to track how many you take.

Once you are comfortable with that, the critical next step is to upgrade to pintxos calientes, or hot pintxos. In some establishments they will give you a menu, in others the menu is on the wall in Spanish, in others there is no menu and you point at uncooked food asking them to grill or fry it for you.

If you speak no Spanish, remember only one word: solomillo.

Unanimously our favourite pintxo from Bar Gandarias in the Old Town, solomillo is a succulent
morsel of sirloin, simply cooked, served medium rare, with olive oil and sprinkled with sea salt. A bite of heaven.

Other favourites were: the racion of Iberian charcuterie from La Cepa, the brochette of cooked prawns from Goiz Bargi, grilled octopus (aka polpo) from Bardulia, another version of solomillo called solomillo a lo pobre (sirloin topped with a fried egg and served with shoestring fries) from Casa Duran in the Gros district near our hotel, and a mushroom, mayonnaise and ham treat from Bergara (also in Gros).

If you want to settle in to graze in one place, we found the bar-top spreads to be most impressive at Bardulia , Bar Martinez, Atari and Gandarias. (The last also has an excellent restaurant, which Ellen's already written about here. Reservations essential.)

We ate pintxos on each of our five days in Donostia and left still wanting more.

Meat or Fish? It's all about succulent protein in Donostia's restaurants

You could spend a week in San Sebastián (Donostia in the local Basque language) and never bother with a "proper" restaurant meal. The region's exquisite pintxos tradition means you can snack your way through days without repeating a bar, while each venue entices you with different two- and three-bite finger foods. On that, more in the next story.

But that would be doing Donostia a disservice. In the best tradition of "amuse bouche", the snackable pintxos are merely mouth-watering preludes to the main event. Dining here lives up to the area's lofty culinary reputation, and yet ... even with the currently horrific pound-to-euro exchange rate ... prices are under London equivalents. There are a staggering nine Michelin-starred restaurants in this medium-sized town, holding the highest number of stars per square meter of any place in the world other than Kyoto.

We didn't bother with the stars. (Though an article filled with tips from Elena Arzak, chef at the eponymous three-star restaurant, directed a lot of our sightseeing and shopping.) Instead, we chose two fine-dining local favourites just below star level, and one of Arzak's favourite casual spots.

First, a few trends across all of our experiences: Culinary traditions here are protein-heavy. Unsurprisingly, fish is exceptional; you'll probably be offered off-menu options fresh from the harbour. I expected that, but I was surprised by the quality of the meat. Those green hills produce succulent beef, pork and lamb. The quality makes for a tough choice. Main plates have little garnish and few sides: it's all about the star attraction and a bit of sauce. Unless something was billed as a salad, veg was a secondary consideration. Except for boletus mushrooms, with which the locals are obsessed. Also known as ceps or porcini, we were there in season and found them everywhere. On the desert front, we encountered variations on a theme: pastry, cream and red fruit. Nothing to complain about there!

Before dinner, however, head out for a cocktail. Donostians are as obsessed by gin as they are by mushrooms ... though a local assured us that the gin passion was a recent evolution. It's certainly the first town I've ever visited where a bar makes the top 10 sights on Trip Advisor. The Gintoneria is in the trendy yet relaxed Gros district and, despite its fame, was busy but not packed. The menu offers the biggest selection of gins I've ever seen, and each one is prepared with its own customised array of accompaniments (peppercorns, flower petals, chili peppers, citrus wedges, etc.) and scented mists. Preparation in a big, stemmed bowl is a spectacle, complete with tea balls of dry ice to send smoke creeping across the bar. I suppose you need to do something special to justify the roughly €11 a drink in a town where an excellent glass of wine can be had for €2.70. We found enough value for money to head there twice, and became great fans of a Spanish gin called Port of Dragons.

And then on to dinner.

Zelai Txiki served up my favourite meal of the trip, for the lowest price. (Three courses, one shared side dish, two excellent bottles of shared wine, £66 each including service.) We discovered it thanks to our hotel's recommendation; it's nestled into the steep hillside above the Villa Soro with spectacular views, but seems completely off the tourist track. Chef Patron Juan Carlos Caro welcomed us and showed off a gorgeous sea bream landed that morning, ready for our enjoyment. Not following his recommendation was probably my biggest mistake of the trip, especially now that Mark Kurlansky's Basque History of the World has informed me that this is a local speciality. There was fresh tuna on the menu, however, and we get so few quality cuts of that fish in London I had to go for it. It was excellent, but I'll always wonder how that bream would have tasted.

First, however, we started with a different round of seafood. Octopus with beetroot for me: a bizarre sounding combination that was delicious, and big enough it should have been a main course. Raves around the table came for local oysters, barely-cooked red prawns and grilled squid. We did follow Chef Caro's recommendation for the local mushrooms: an extraordinarily rich dish in which the grilled, herbed porcini came out on a thin bed of mashed potatoes, then had an egg yolk mixed in before hitting our plates.

There's a weighty wine list here, and if you're as keen as we are then you might even be invited for a quick tour of the glass-walled wine room where they store the goods. We matched our main course tuna with a light Mallorcan red called 4 Kilos, an exemplary red wine and fish combo.

Pudding was my introduction to the Gateau Basque: pastry wrapped around a traditional cherry jam. Stunning stuff. The only thing that could have made the meal better was warm weather and sunshine: there's a wide terrace here with a great view; a lingering dinner on a summer evening here would be bliss.

Rekondo was a bit more formal and solidly on the tourist track, with a lofty reputation that suggests they're nipping at the heels of one of those coveted Michelin stars. We only got in here because our concierge snagged us a table with his local connections. A similar amount of food and wine here cost almost £20 per person more than at Zelai Txiki. I would head there again without a second thought, however, simply for the chance to have their suckling pig again. I love pork, and have had a lot of fine examples in my life, but this was the single best plate of porcine cookery I've ever tasted. The intensely-flavoured meat practically collapsed on my tongue it was so tender; the perfectly-seasoned and cooked crackling was moulded around it like a turtle's shell.

My starter of piquillo peppers stuffed with stewed oxtail was almost as extraordinary, with its powerful flavours and one of those sauces that demands extra bread so you can mop up every drop. My desert of pastry cones stuffed with cream was as beautiful as it was tasty. (Top photo)

Rekondo is as famous for its wine list as its food; it's one of those weighty encyclopaedias of world wine you could peruse for an hour. They can offer this variety because a basement below the restaurant is one big cellar, with multiple rooms crammed with the owner's prized collection. Show interest in the list and the sommelier will invite you on the end-of-service tour. We stayed Spanish and reasonably-priced, but you could drink your way around the planet here while dropping some significant cash. (I suspect the high-rolling bon vivant from Lichtenstein at the next table, who we chatted with during our wine cellar tour, was doing just that.)

Gandarias is all about the beef. This is one of the Old Town's best known pintxos bars, famous for a bite-sized morsel of rare sirloin called a solomio. It also has a sit-down restaurant through some dividing screens at the back, where it's essential to reserve a table.

We were here for a full-sized serving of that sirloin. Rare, with a caramelised bark on the outside, a
sprinkle of sea salt on top and a glass of rioja on the side ... a pean to the idea that simplicity is all you need when quality and cooking combine perfectly. We went for more porcini here, grilled simply with fresh herbs and served as a side. Just to balance out the beef, we started with a platter of mixed charcuterie served with piles of fresh bread, and ended with a thin, sweet cheese tart topped with a layer of jellied, dark red fruits. It all worked well with that rioja. I think we might have had a third bottle amongst us that evening, though the bill still only came in within a pound of Zelai Txiki.

Our other two nights in Donostia we skipped the restaurants and enjoyed progressive pintxos tasting. Of that adventure, read the next story.

Three essentials for a Donostian weekend

While you could easily spend a week or two in San Sebastián ... especially for a summer beach
holiday ... we headed there for a long weekend. This seems a typical time frame for many visitors. With just a few days on your hands, what should you do? (Other than eat, of course, which will be the topic of stories to come.)

Three things: walk around a lot, delve into the San Telmo Museum, and relax in La Perla spa.

Walk
19th century beach resorts were all about promenading, and it's worth planning plenty of long, leisurely walks around Donostia ... to use its Basque name. This is a town that rewards pedestrians. The views are magnificent, combining the glories of raw nature (surf, sand, hills) with artfully planned gardens and impressive architecture. You can walk almost anywhere you'd want to go in under a mile, though we were clocking five to seven a day cumulatively. Fortunately, this is a town laden with interesting bars and coffee shops when you need to rest your feet.

The most obvious walk is around the crescent moon-shaped La Concha beach, as anticipated by 19th century town planners who created a tidy embankment risen high enough above the beach to give you sweeping views. There are broad pavements, ornate street lamps and some suitably frivolous Belle Epoque architecture. Surprisingly, there's little shopping on this stretch. Unlike Cannes' Croisette, which rings the beach with back-to-back posh shops and cafes fronting the hotels behind, La Concha's seafront is quiet and heavily residential. On the east side, closer to the Old Town, there's a lovely garden in front of the Town Hall.

I'd suggest deferring La Concha, however, to walk around the headland of Mount Urgull first. Start in the northeast corner of the old town, by the San Telmo museum, head out to the Paseo Nuevo and turn left. The steep hill with the fort on it will be to your left, and the sea to your right. There's nothing to break the waves between here and Nova Scotia, so even on a relatively mild day the surf crashes with some spectacular spray against the walls below. There's a plaza at the northeast corner of the peninsula you're circling (look for the roundabout with bus stop) that offers hypnotic wave watching. To your right, watch the breakers roll onto Zurriola beach, and the show of surfers atop them. To your left, look down on a roiling cauldron of water surging around giant blocks of stone. Keep circling the hill and you'll come to another sharp turn, marked by sculptor Jorge Oteiza's Construcción Vacía, a wonderful illustration of how bold, abstract art can add drama when it's in the right place.

From there, you turn back towards town and the whole sweep of La Concha hits you, with fanciful towers and rooflines rising up the hills behind. At the same time you're getting a great view of the little Santa Klara island that sits in the middle of the bay and is responsible for calming the surf on the beach beyond. A bit further on and you're now looking down into the old harbour, and scrambling down steps to return you to the Old Town. You can continue onto the more genteel circuit of La Concha from there. Although I'd nip into a bar for a drink and some pintxos first.

Walking through the urban centre can be just as spectacular, thanks to Donastia's eclectic and highly decorative architecture. The biggest attraction in the Old Town is the remarkable density of pintxos bars. But there's also a pleasing jumble of venerable buildings, a noble rectangular plaza that used to be the setting for bull fights, and a couple of churches worth popping your nose into. (San Vincente, free, is all brooding, dark Romanesque lines and glowering, martyr-driven Catholicism; Santa Maria, €3, is a more cheerful, light-touch baroque building with a museum and some interesting modern art amongst more suffering saints.) Don't miss the exceptional fish market, now in modern quarters down an escalator beneath the grand old building that once held it. You'll weep that you don't have a kitchen.

Drift south from the Old Town into the Centro, a bonanza for shopping in independent boutiques
while gazing up in appreciation at the architecture. No two buildings are the same. As you near the cathedral the neighbourhood gets more residential. Mums with prams, grandparents with toddlers and youngsters fresh out of school played around fountains or along tree-lined streets. Meanwhile, lots of grown ups seemed to be enjoying the freedom of flexible working from WiFi enabled cafes on Reyes Católicos, the street that runs straight from the back of the cathedral. (Don't miss Old Town Coffee, the kind of independent cafe most of us can only fantasise about calling our local.)

San Telmo Museum
Start your trip here, if you can, and plan for two or three hours at the beginning of a day when you're still full of energy. There's a lot to see.

Spread through an old Dominican convent and a modern addition, this museum is tucked in a corner of the Old Town hard against the wooded hillside of Mount Urgull. It covers the history of the area but ... more specifically ... the history of Basque culture. It's an unabashed celebration of a people who are, lest you forget, not Spanish.

Spend some time admiring the haunting collection of pre-historic grave markers in the cloister before you delve into Basque co-existence with the Romans and the stresses of the Middle Ages. This was the closest the Basques ever came to having their own country, but the Kingdom of Navarre eventually got sucked in to Castilian Spain.

There's a theory that the lack of a political identity at home sparked the Basques to great things abroad; the galleries on the Age of Discovery are where you'll really start to be impressed. The Basques were master ship builders and explorers who gave us salt cod (a food that transformed the modern economy), long distance travel (the first captain to circumnavigate the globe was not Magellan, who died en route, but Basque Juan Sebastian Elcano) and the rubber-cored ball (transforming tennis and many other sports). Back home, women ran things in a society that had been matriarchal since pre-history. Basque women were known for their assertive, showy nature and my favourite display in the place was of traditional headwear, arranged by modern Basque designer Balenciaga. And in turns out Saints Francis Xavier and Ignatius Loyola were Basques. Suddenly, I understood the Jesuits a lot better.

Historical galleries proceed through the industrial revolution, where Basques punched above their economic weight once again, and on to the civil war, where the Basques suffered horribly. (Can we talk about Guernica?) The modern galleries leave you with an upbeat sense of a people who are grabbing every opportunity for success. Specialist galleries offer collections of Basque art, looks at folkloric traditions and an introduction to a unique set of Basque sports. The convent's church was closed when we visited, but is set to re-open with a new exhibit on local hero Balenciaga.

Your €6 admission fee includes an audio guide with detailed English commentary.

La Perla Spa
If your idea of a great spa is torrents of hot water pounding you in a dazzling variety of ways, La Perla is for you. Four main pools offer jets, bubbles, waterfalls and whirlpools directed at every body part imaginable.

This being a continental European spa, it's more about health than R&R. La Perla offers serious thalassotherapy, trumpeting the positive effects of sea water. One of the main pools takes you down a line of jets, each one with specific instructions for how to relieve stress in the targeted part of the body. In another, you can push through a waterfall to lie on a row of beds frothing with bubbles. Fancy something less exotic? There's a plain-old whirlpool bath, but it's big enough to seat 20 comfortably and sits in the middle of the central pavilion with a sweeping circle of windows looking out over beach and bay.

Another level down you'll find a grotto-style area with cool blue lights and a pool with special aqua gym equipment. Bicycles, cross-trainers, weight machines, all used under water for a joint-friendly experience. It's my dream gym! This level also has saunas, a cold sea water plunge pool and a relaxation room. There's even a bizarre but amusing twisting, tiled corridor you explore while intermittent jets of hot and cold water surprise you from different directions while the lights shift from blue to red to total darkness. (Clearly, health and safety rules are different here.)



Add fantastic views and great architecture: the original building forms part of the seaside embankment, with a grand central rotunda and two wings ending in matching pavilions. On the main floor, everything is flooded with light and looks out over the beach and the water. You can descend from one of those wings onto the sand and head out for a dip in the bay, which I did despite the bracing temperatures of late October.

While the exterior has changed little from its 1912 opening photos, inside you're in state-of-the-art health club territory. Entering from the street, you're actually at the top of the building. Descend one floor for the gym and regular members' entry, and two for the spa visitor area.

La Perla is surprisingly good value for money: Five hours in the spa and a one-hour full-body massage was £87. (The equivalent would be around £150 in the UK.) That's probably because of some important cultural differences. Knowing about them in advance is key to really enjoying your time here.

The locals use this as a health and fitness facility. They go in, do their aqua workouts and leave. There is no tradition here of lounging around with books and magazines, or taking long naps on heated loungers. I counted only 16 places to sit down in the whole facility, and the "relaxation room" (eight elevated beds with water mattresses) features disturbingly loud spa music that discourages lingering. Which also explains why the girl showing us around was so discouraging about us bringing in kindles, books, glasses, etc.

To enter, you have to put your dressing gown and other items through a chute while you walk through a shower lane. You also have to keep your La Perla swimming cap on the whole time. We were amused that they were so obsessive about cleanliness in those ways, but insisted everyone leave their flip flops outside and walk around barefoot ... something you'll get reprimanded for in British spas. They also don't provide towels, presumably because they think you're going to get into the water, stay in until you're ready to leave, then go shower. There's no drinking water anywhere in the spa, much less a restaurant or bar. That's all outside, for afterwards.

Armed with the knowledge of experience I would have skipped the massage, which was perfectly pleasant but nothing special. (And lost any lingering benefits the moment I was forced to put a sodden dressing gown on to return to the dressing room.) I definitely recommend the pools, but treat them like locals do. Go for a two-hour slot for €27. Bring a water bottle. Skip the reading material. And pinch a towel from your hotel.

An introduction to San Sebastián: So much more than food and beach

San Sebastián started its journey to fashionable acclaim when 19th century Spanish royals adopted it as their summer beach resort. Early this century, a little restaurant in the nearby hills called El Bulli was named the best in the world, and its chef, Ferran Adrià, spearheaded a movement to make this bit of Northern Spanish coast a culinary capital.

And that's pretty much what I was expecting on our 17th annual girls' trip: a Spanish version of Cannes with more innovative food and drink. I found so much more.

Deep and varied history. Fascinating architecture. Dramatic landscape. A tradition of craftsmanship that goes beyond the food to clothing, accessories and home decor. The hip edginess of a youthful surfing culture blended with the sophisticated elegance of ancient traditions. A surrounding region stuffed with things to see and do. Fiercely independent shops and restaurants keeping global brands at bay. Game of Thrones filming locations. All connected by highways, WiFi and 4G availability that put England to shame.

The delight of new discovery filled our days. Here are six reasons San Sebastián exceeded my basic expectations, and a tip for a fabulous boutique hotel from which to enjoy it all.

This is a different country
I'd heard of the Basque Country, but I hadn't appreciated its uniqueness. For all that I understand the factors driving the desire for Catalan independence, I have to confess that Barcelona feels like Spain to me. San Sebastián and its surrounding coastline does not. I quickly appreciated that we shouldn't even be talking about San Sebastián. Donostia is its real, Basque name.

Thickly forested hills proclaim a climate closer to Wales than sunny Iberian holiday spots. Much of the architecture ... peaked rooflines, half-timbering, broad, square farm houses ... feels almost Germanic. You hear a lot of Basque being spoken and it's on all the street signs. (I don't recall noticing significant Catalan conversation in previous Barcelona visits.) There's a vibrant community spirit obvious on even a short visit as you notice community dining clubs and musical groups gathering in public spaces for spontaneous performances. They even have their own unique sports traditions; it turns out the Jai Alai I know from Miami started here. It's a place that feels familiar yet totally alien at the same time, and the uniqueness of Basque origins ... oldest indigenous people in Europe, language related to no other ... adds to the mystery of the place.

You can get an excellent introduction to Basque history and culture at Donostia's San Telmo museum, of which I'll write a bit more later. It's also worth getting a local guide to understand more of the nuances. We used Ikusnahi (more coming on their wonderful tour, too.) Savvy travellers (I was not) will read Mark Kurlansky's Basque History of the World before going.

So much more than food
Architecture fans will be entranced. Donostia is a city of grand apartment blocks; the architects here were obsessed by rooflines and corners. Fanciful spires, balconies, turrets and windows span everything from gothic to art deco to brutalist modernism. There's a preponderance of Belle Epoque, that golden age between the 1870s and World War I when buildings and wedding cakes seemed to converge. The opera house looked promising; I'd consult the schedule before another visit.

There's a rich and complicated history (queue the Basques again) to delve into that stretches back long before the royal beach holidays. That patronage, however, has left a top quality spa that any fan of a soak in bubbling hot water needs to check out. (Story to come.)  Meanwhile, sporty types will welcome hiking trails, cycle paths and surfing beaches. While our four days in town was enough to cover the basics, there's more here to keep your attention.

Pintxos are not tapas
If you're at all into your food, the word you'll hear time and again in relation to Donostia is pintxos. (Pronounced peen-chos) People typically describe them as "Basque tapas" but they are far more sophisticated. Cold pintxos are much closer to the Danish smørrebrød; artfully prepared, open-faced, finger-sized sandwiches that are a work of art on their own. Hot pintxos require a bit more bravery as you actually have to order rather than self-serving from the bar, but reward you with a lesson in the locals' mastery over beef and pork.

It's no wonder that Adrià was at the forefront of the revolution that turned fine dining plates into works of art; many individual pintxos are as beautiful to look at as they are to eat. Forget the tapas comparison. Pintxos are closer to fine dining in miniature.

But a word of warning: vegetarians need not apply. This is a land in love with protein, whether from land or sea. Vegetables exist to supplement those glories, not to stand alone. If you don't at least eat fish, you're going to be reduced to plain bread, tortilla and plates of mushrooms. Though you'll have to specify the preparation on the latter, because they're likely to wrap a few in bacon and throw them in the deep fryer. Everything is, after all, better with bacon.

Dramatic landscape
The green, misty mountains come right to the sea. It's easy to see how right up until modern times there was little transit between towns unless you went by water. It's an hour's drive from the airport in Bilbao, and I spent most of the journey marvelling at the feat of building a highway through this landscape. The tough terrain breeds both tough, practical people and magnificent sailors. Who was the first ship's captain the circumnavigate the globe? You may remember the name Magellan, but he doesn't count as he didn't live to complete the journey. It was Basque Juan Sebastián Elcano, born just up the coast from Donostia.

And what an exquisite coast it is. Golden beaches alternate with dramatic cliffs of striated rock thrust heavenward by continental drift. Unsheltered beaches see dramatic waves and violently churning surf. The glory of Donostia, however, is a crescent-shaped beach called La Concha with an island blocking part of the entry from the sea. Bathers come here, while surfers head for the more agitated waters on the city's second beach to the east.

Not fussy
Given the legacy of the 19th century beach resort, I was prepared for something like Cannes. And though I've had a lot of fun in that city over the years, you can never shake off that feeling that it's the creation of supercilious French snobs who take vast pride in two centuries of over-charging the English for their holidays. Donostia's only real resemblance to the French Riviera is the Belle Epoque architecture. The natives are gracious, cheerful and delighted to be helpful. Though they will make it clear that they have their own way of doing things. Trying to take a Kindle into the spa or being too creative with a pintxos order may earn you a firm but polite rebuke.

Though both the people and the architecture are fantastically elegant, there's a laid-back, casual vibe to the place. You get the feel of a practical people who take life as it comes and enjoy every day. Our guide explained that the Basques have a long history of both egalitarianism and women's rights; the class system and excessive formality are things that came with Castilian nobles parachuted in by a distant government.

Shopping
In a planet marching towards the uniformity of global brands, Donostia is a delight. For every logo you recognise, there are two or three independent boutiques. Clothing boutiques are elegant little collections of individual taste, usually hung by colour so you can get a sense of how to put an outfit together. In these shops I saw no recognisable brands, and several boasted of clothes designed and made in the region. The clothing was beautifully constructed, often with distinctive design elements and gorgeous fabrics. They even ... quite remarkably for the Iberian peninsula ... had some sizes for the generously proportioned. We found sales people who were wonderfully skilled at quickly figuring out your taste, then pulling stuff out that would look great on you. For the best example of this, check out Minimil.

Small jewellery stores featured makers at work benches and one-of-a-kind creations in the windows. Bookshops basked in Art Nouveau splendour, bristling with hand-written recommendations on shelf fronts. The fish market will make you weep that you don't have a kitchen. Home stores and galleries are filled with quirky decorative items and beautiful works of craftsmanship. And, even with the abysmal Euro-to-Pound exchange, prices weren't excessive. The combined forces of the annual girls' trip haven't done this much shopping in many years.

WHERE TO STAY

We splurged on the Hotel Villa Soro, a boutique hotel in a converted 19th century mansion about a mile and a half from the heart of the old town. This delivered exactly what we were looking for: extreme comfort, attentive staff and plenty of cozy public spaces to lounge around when we weren't sightseeing. There's a main house and a modern block across a small courtyard behind it. We upgraded to the house and I suspect it was that plus our five-night stay that saw us in what must be the two best rooms in the house. Rooms 12 and 14 are at the front corners, with 18-foot ceilings and grand windows overlooking the front lawn. 14 has a large patio we put to good use on sunny days.

The decor is a gentle mix of Spanish late-19th century (there's a stained glass ceiling above the entry hall and a stained glass holy family illuminating a little room I assume was once a chapel on the landing of the grand stair), English country house and modern (striking abstract sculpture in key locations). The enormous sitting room could comfortably seat three to five distinct groups without crowding, though we were almost always on our own there. While we settled in, other guests ... mostly American and a few Germans ... tended to stay for only a night or two. Villa Soro provides limited restaurant facilities, but acknowledges that in a town with such good food you're probably only going to bother with them if you're simply too tired to go out. They put on a fine breakfast in their two-room dining area, including plenty of cooked options. However, the quality of bread (the tumeric-flavoured was fantastic), pork products, local cheese and fresh fruit meant that we skipped the cooked options most mornings.

The staff came through with excellent restaurant recommendations and managed to get us a table at one well-known spot that was booked up through regular channels. Taxis arrived quickly, there were bicycles to borrow, the barman made top gin and tonics and the bathroom was stocked with Molton Brown products. It's worth noting that the photos on the web site have been artfully shot to disguise the fact that the house is in a densely-packed area on a main road. I was initially worried about traffic noise but outside of rush hour all was quiet. Getting to the centre of town is a 20-minute walk or a 10 euro taxi ride; we tended to walk in (it's a gentle slope down) and taxi back. The steep hills behind the house held my favourite restaurant of the trip, Zelai Txiki, and closer than the Old Town is the trendy Gros district and the pounding breakers of Zurriola beach, the surfers' favourite.

British Museum's Scythian show brings mythic people to life

If you share my opinion that the British Museum is at its best when it's exposing us to mysterious cultures about which we know little, then you'll love the current Scythian exhibit.

Hold on, I hear you say. They're not mysterious. Horse people? Russian Steppes? Attila, Huns and the fall of the Roman Empire, right?

Close, but no. The Scythians were indeed mounted, nomadic warriors who occupied an informal empire that stretched from modern China in the east all the way to Greece in the west. But they roamed the steppes hundreds of years before the Huns; they were active from about the 9th c BC to the  1st c BC. Their contemporaries were Alexander the Great, the Ancient Greeks, and Persian kings like Darius and Cyrus rather than the last Roman Emperors and terrified medieval monks. And while the Huns produced some gorgeous portable art and did us the favour of inventing the stirrup, Scythian art makes the later stuff look simple and crude.

More intriguing, the Scythians almost disappeared from history for more than 1,000 years and are still little known today. Thanks to Ghengis and Attila (perhaps the ultimate example of the idea that "no press is bad press") the Huns blaze a trail through Western civilisation. Most people know at least a little about them. When it comes to the Scythians, there wasn't much in the historical record beyond a few mentions by Herodotus, and no physical remains. Many people assumed they were a myth. Then, under Peter the Great, Russians started digging into burial mounds and unearthing astonishing treasure. The tsar was captivated, and declared all Scythian excavations to be the property of the crown. In the 19th century, construction of the Trans-Siberian railway unearthed more magical stuff, again sent straight to royal hands. Keeping the entire archive of a culture in a private collection for two centuries, then having it fall behind an iron curtain for almost a century, is not a recipe for global awareness. Even in post-Soviet Russia, the only way to see this stuff was to seek it out in the Hermitage and ... fabulous as they are ... the Scythians probably don't make the Top 10 list in most tourist visits to that great museum.

Thus this treat, on loan mostly from the Hermitage, feels more like the discovery of a mystical race from a fantasy novel than "real history". Nomadic equestrian societies are, after all, a staple of fantasy fiction, from Tolkein's Riders of Rohan to Game of Thrones' Dothraki to David Edding's Algars. The Scythians would fit comfortably beside any of them, though probably trump them all in
their lush artistic sensibilities.

The most striking thing here is the gold work. All nomads are distinguished by carrying their wealth with them, but I've seen no more glorious example than the Scythians. They wore enormous golden belt buckles that told adventurous stories of hunts and mythology. There's magnificent jewellery: torques, earrings, pendants. They developed a clever production method to mass produce small, but beautifully detailed, golden images that could be sewn onto clothing like shimmering sequins. These all share an extraordinary ability to portray both animals and the human figure. Horses leap with energy, stags seem ready to toss their antlers, huntsmen are about to spring towards their prey. Curves are sinuous, definition sharp, gems set with fine precision. This stuff is extraordinary, and if the show was only about the gold, it would be enough.

But there's a whole world here. Siberian permafrost does as good a job of preservation as Egyptian sands. Thus we have beautifully preserved, modular furniture and cooking utensils. Beautiful woven cloth, stitched hides and furs. There's a pair of women's shoes with rich patterns in crystal and glass beads on the soles. If you spent your life in the saddle, or sitting around a campfire, why not show off the bottom of your feet? There's a teepee-style tent made to go with a charcoal brazier; Scythians evidently unwound their stresses by throwing hemp seeds onto the fire and sniffing the drugged fumes contained in the tent. They were also particularly fond of wine (trading the Greeks for it is part of what earned them Herodotus' notice), and the drinking horns and cups here are exquisite.

Unsurprisingly, the equestrian trappings, armour and weapons are impressive. The Scythians were
horse-borne warriors, after all. There's a particularly striking wooden helmet topper of a menacing dragon's head. If having a warrior riding at me at full pelt weren't horrifying enough, seeing this towering above him would scare me into immediate submission. They've even transported the massive wooden logs of a burial chamber here, the primeval size of the tree trunks adding to the mythic quality of it all.

Perhaps most striking are the human remains themselves. We come face to face with a real Scythian warrior, skin tremendously well preserved through permafrost mummification. Though his inner-workings of his limbs are long gone, his skin is spread flat here to show off his tattoo scheme. Whether on jewellery, utensils or themselves, these people loved pattern. Later on we come across particularly lifelike funerary masks.

 Rarely have I encountered a show that paints such a well-rounded picture of a whole people. My only complaint? No audio guide to add more depth to the experience. Given how little most of us know of the topic, a way for the public to dive more deeply into it seems a no-brainer. At least I got there early. Scythians: Ancient Warriors of Siberia is on at the British Museum until 14 January, so there's plenty of time for a return visit to learn more about this compelling society.