Travel – Tom Sweeney Travel Writer

There are no ‘Tourists go home’ signs in warm and welcoming Vitoria-Gasteiz

If you haven’t heard of the capital of the Spanish Basque Country, you’re not alone, but this splendid city is well worth knowing

“I bet you all a pint you can’t name the capital of the Spanish Basque Country,” I said to the lads in Ryan’s Bar. Gerry had a guess at Bilbao. Terry thought it was San Sebastian. Liam pitched in with Pamplona.

All wrong. It’s Vitoria-Gasteiz, though softies from Seville – in fact, anywhere south of Madrid – call it Siberia-Gasteiz and arrive with raincoats, jerseys and umbrellas, even in August.

“They think it rains here every day and we’re always freezing, but I like to say we’re always prepared for any weather,” said tour guide Leire Cameno as she stuffed her fleece into her backpack.

“This morning it was dull and chilly, and three hours later it’s sunny and warm. That’s why we wear layers that we can peel off, and why we’re known as The Onions.”

I was in Vitoria-Gasteiz just after Easter and had to nip into a pharmacy for an emergency bottle of factor 50 – mid-May, and I was nearly melting.

An hour’s drive south of Bilbao, the city is a mix of medieval and modern, easily walkable and surrounded by a 33km green belt that includes the Salburua Park on the eastern outskirts, with a handy tram stop at the entrance.

The park is a wild expanse of dry and wet grasslands and lakes, where birdsong, the quacking of ducks, the honking of geese and the slap of wings on water provide a pleasing backing track during a stroll through the poplar woods and oak groves.

In rutting season every October, the stags in the herd of red deer brought from the Scottish Highlands to keep the vegetation in trim add blood-curdling bellowing and the clash of antlers to the soundscape as they battle it out to mate with the hinds.

*Red deer doe in Salburua Park, on the outskirts of the city*

On April 26, 1937, it was the drone of impending death and destruction that emanated from Salburua as planes from Hitler’s Condor Legion and Mussolini’s Aviazione Legionaria took off to take part in the bombing of Guernica, 50km to the north.

It was the worst atrocity of the Spanish Civil War, killing at least 300 people, including many children, on a busy market day, and is depicted in nightmarish detail in Picasso’s grey, white and black oil painting named after the town.

The massive artwork is the main attraction in the Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid, and there it will remain – requests from galleries in the Basque Country to borrow it are always denied because the custodians fear they won’t get it back.

Citizens of Vitoria-Gasteiz and the visitors they’re always happy to welcome – no “Tourists go home” signs or protesters armed with water pistols here – aren’t short of galleries in which to get a culture fix, including the Artium Museum of Contemporary Art.

However, those who like to know what they’re looking at without wondering if it’s hanging the wrong way up should spend an hour admiring the portraits and scenes of everyday local life from the mid-18th to early-20th centuries in the Museum of Fine Arts.

*Ricardo Augustin (left) and his wife Elvira Zulueta (right) had themselves immortalised in stained glass*

The museum is in the Augustin Zulueta Palace in the city’s poshest residential avenue, Paseo de Fray Francisco, which makes Dublin’s affluent Ailesbury Road look like Coronation Street.

Completed in 1916 after four years of construction, the palace was the marital home of nobleman’s daughter Elvira Zulueta and Ricardo Augustin, the biggest pair of bigheads that ever spent an hour in front of a mirror.

If you thought Donald Trump was vain, at least he hasn’t had himself glorified in stained glass in the Oval Office.

Yet there the couple are in the first-floor landing window, captioned Sanctus Ricardus and Sanctus Elvira and with the sunlight streaming through their golden halos and multi-coloured robes like a straightened-out rainbow. How very presumptuous.

*Statue of author Ken Follett, who looks remarkably like actor Dustin Hoffman, at the Cathedral of Santa Maria*

Most visitors to the 13th-century fortress Cathedral of Santa Maria presume the life-sized bronze statue of a modern-day man in a suit in Plaza de la Burulleria outside is Dustin Hoffman and wonder what he’s doing there.

Then they learn it’s his doppelganger, bestselling Welsh author Ken Follett, and wonder what he’s doing there.

Follett was in Vitoria-Gasteiz in October 2002 for a conference and took a tour of the cathedral restoration works – the building had been in danger of collapsing because of subsidence, and several columns and arches are still out of kilter, though now safe.

Having chronicled the construction of a cathedral in the fictitious English town of Kingsbridge in the 12th-century (The Pillars of the Earth, 1989), Follett was inspired by the Santa Maria project to write the sequel, World Without End (2007).

His work in promoting appreciation of church architecture through his novels earned him the Basque-Navarro College of Architects’ Olaguibel Prize, and he attended the unveiling of the statue in January 2008 to coincide with the presentation of the award.

During his acceptance speech, he said that when he told his family he was going to be immortalised in bronze, they asked if he would be mounted on a horse or nude, with a fig leaf to spare his blushes.

*Thirteenth-century Cathedral of Santa Maria*

Guided tours of the cathedral can be booked online (catedralvitoria.eus), and if you’re lucky, the person showing you around will be Itziar Gurruchaga, whose father, Iñigo, was the correspondent in Belfast for the Basque newspaper El Correo in the 1990s.

Starting in the foundations and proceeding to the tower via narrow passages and stairways and the even narrower gallery where you have to breathe in and walk sideways, Itziar told the fascinating story of this Gothic masterpiece.

For an hour, I hung on her every word as she brought 800 years of history to life.

The cathedral sits atop the only hill in the city and is skirted by the cobbled streets of the medieval quarter, where several moving walkways, like those in airports, make it easy for less able visitors to get up to the entrance.

Those streets are home to some of the best pintxo bars in town, where the owners try to outdo each other in creating the tastiest tapas. It’s a friendly rivalry that ensures customers are treated to the finest finger food while bar-hopping.

*The city’s many pintxos bars and restaurants offer a vast array of tasty treats*

In his book, The Basque Country (Signal, 2007), Irish author and journalist Paddy Woodworth writes: “Eating one’s way through the Basque Country is a constant pleasure.”

That’s true, but he adds: “I would not go back to Vitoria for the snails, which are the piece de resistance of the San Prudencio celebrations (I would rather chew black rubber, despite the spicy tomato sauce).

“But even that let-down was more than made up for by the scrambled eggs laced with baby wild mushrooms, which are the second speciality of that fiesta.”

Those little fungi are perretxikos, also known as St George’s mushrooms and often no bigger than a jelly bean, yet a premium-quality kilo costs up to €300.

They’re one of the ingredients in Irlandes de Perretxikos, an award-winning pintxo by Enrique Fuentes of Bar Toloño that also contains foie gras, soft-boiled egg yolk and truffle oil served in a glass and topped with fresh cream, so it looks like an Irish coffee.

In 2006, Enrique was encouraged by his family to enter the first ever Basque Country Pintxo Championship, in San Sebastian, and put many a Michelin-starred nose out of joint when he took top prize with his Milhojas de Habitas.

It’s mille-feuille (puff pastry where I come from) with smoked mackerel, broad beans and ratatouille, and it’s Toloño’s top-seller.

It’s also one of the featured dishes in Gastrogune (gastrogune.com), a deli by day and sit-down pintxo experience by night run by Enrique’s daughter Sonia with chef Ainhoa Gonzalez.

The two friends cater to small groups and serve a selection of freshly made signature pintxos accompanied by Basque wines (Vitoria-Gasteiz is the gateway to the Rioja-Alavesa wine region) and mouth-watering commentary from Ainhoa.

*Harvesting salt from the ancient pans at Añana’s Salt Valley*

The salt on Sonia’s table comes from Añana, 30km west of Vitoria-Gasteiz, where it has been harvested for 7,500 years. So prized was this particular “white gold” in the ancient world that Roman emperors wouldn’t put anything else on their chips.

Deep beneath the floor of Añana’s Salt Valley (vallesalado.com) is a 5.5km by 3.5km mass of the solidified mineral remains of a sea that dried out 200 million years ago.

Fresh water runs through this and emerges as brine from four natural springs that were discovered by the Neolithic Autrigones people (it was like winning a huge EuroMillions jackpot), who extracted the salt by boiling away the liquid in clay pots.

Today, a network of centuries-old narrow wooden channels conveys the brine from the springs to the pans, where it evaporates, leaving behind the salt that is then collected, packed and sold throughout Spain and online as a premium product.

Visitors will learn all this during a guided tour of the 32 acres of salt pans, but I had already been educated on the way there by taxi driver Adolfo Martinez, who lives nearby and has become an expert on this remarkable world heritage site.

“Everybody thinks sea salt is the healthiest, but 90pc of it is contaminated with microplastics,” he said. “Here at Añana it’s 100pc pure, despite its marine origins – there were no vast forests of plastic bags floating around in the primordial oceans.

“The little ones call me Uncle Adolfo. That makes me very happy”

“The producers of ordinary table salt bleach it with chemicals to make it snow-white and it’s nothing but sodium chloride, but Añana salt contains 84 minerals and essential trace elements.

“It’s the best in the world, and you’ll find it in all the top restaurants of Spain. We have a world-famous Basque chef, Martin Berasategui, and he says it’s the Rolls-Royce of condiments. He should know – he has 11 Michelin stars.”

Adolfo is regarded as a star by countless families within a 20km radius of Salt Valley, as he has been driving their children to and from school, football training, debs, first dates and college for the past 30 years.

“These days, I also drive the children of the first children I used to take to nursery school in the 1990s, so life has come full circle,” he said. “The little ones call me Uncle Adolfo. That makes me very happy.”

Living in Vitoria-Gasteiz makes tour guide Leire very happy.

“I was born and raised here and I’m raising my children here,” she said. “It’s a friendly and safe place. We’re surrounded by nature – you’re never more than 300 metres from a park or other green space. It’s beautiful. Everything we need is on our doorstep.

“My husband sometimes has to travel for his work, and he has been asked several times to relocate, but we have always said no. Vitoria-Gasteiz is our home. We love it, and I love showing it off to visitors. We will never leave.”

“People make Glasgow” is the marketing slogan of my own home town. The capital of the Spanish Basque Country (I’m still waiting for those pints from Gerry, Terry and Liam) should adopt it, because every resident I spoke with couldn’t have been nicer.

Like Uncle Adolfo, they’re the salt of the earth.

SAIL I visited Vitoria-Gasteiz as a guest of Brittany Ferries (brittany-ferries.ie), whose luxury vessel Salamanca (above), which is more like a cruise ship than a ferry, sails twice a week from Rosslare Harbour to Bilbao. Salamanca has kennels and several pet-friendly cabins, and the crossing takes from 28 to 30 hours. One of the highlights of the voyage is dolphin- and whale-spotting in the Bay of Biscay with on-board ocean conservationist Éirinn Kearney, from Lochgiel, Co Antrim (orca.org.uk).

FLY Aer Lingus flies from Dublin to Bilbao. There are nine buses each day (13 in high season) from Bilbao airport to Vitoria-Gasteiz (45-minute journey, longer at peak traffic times).

STAY Aparthotel Kora Green City (koragreencity.com) in Vitoria-Gasteiz is one of the most energy-efficient accommodations in the world, ideally located in a quiet neighbourhood, yet a mere 10-minute stroll from the historical centre – just follow the tram lines.

For further information, see vitoria-gasteiz.org and spain.info

Several ports in a storm at Porto’s poshest hotel

Visitors are flocking to Portugal’s second city, thanks in large part to the jealousy-inducing views from the Yeatman

*The view of Porto that sells the city to prospective long-weekenders*

Torrential rain is a rarity in Porto, so there isn’t a great selection of umbrellas in the few shops that sell them when you get caught in an unseasonable September downpour.

That’s how I ended up under one of those dome-shaped clear plastic brollies that were favoured by the late Queen Elizabeth.

She had a big collection of them, each with a different coloured rim so she always had one to match her outfit on a wet day. Mine, however, was decorated with little yellow ducklings wearing wellies and splashing in puddles.

I felt like a right eejit, but it didn’t matter – I was back in my favourite city in the world.

At the five-star Yeatman hotel, where I was staying, the bowler-hatted doorman took the offending article from me and told a young porter to hurry up and hide it.

There was no sign of the rain abating, so with time to kill I squelched my way to the bar and had several ports in a storm.

*The five-star Yeatman Hotel in Vila Nova de Gaia, across the Douro from Porto*

Porto is the birthplace of port wine, made from grapes grown on the steep, terraced hillsides of the Douro Valley upriver from the city and fortified with spirit (aguardente) before fermentation is complete.

This results in an alcohol content as high as 22pc, which is nearly twice the strength of most table reds and whites.

There are six main types of port – tawny (matured in the barrel for up to 40 years and even longer), ruby (matured in the bottle), vintage, late bottled vintage (LBV), rosé and white.

I asked a barman buddy in Dublin if he could name a handful of well-known brands, and it was like asking a Celtic fan to name the Lisbon Lions. He rattled off 11 – Dow’s, Taylor’s, Graham’s, Sandeman, Cockburn, Croft, Niepoort, Fonseca, Offley, Kopke and Ramos Pinto.

On my most recent of many visits to Portugal’s second city, I discovered Croft Pink during a wander through the World of Wine (WOW) complex of museums, restaurants, bars and shops next door to the Yeatman and owned by the same company.

An online reviewer wrote: “Croft Pink presents attractive floral notes underlining the pungent, aromatic fruit aromas. The palate is full of deliciously ripe cherry and raspberry flavours with lovely nuances of honey and grapefruit.”

Or, as I would say: “Enough of the guff – pour another one out and to hell with the gout.”

*Port wine boats on the Douro by the Dom Luis double-decker metal bridge*

Actually, it’s a common misconception that drinking too much port brings on gout because, for a start, I don’t have it. The excruciating arthritic condition known as the “disease of kings” is more associated with a lavish diet and has afflicted the big toes of bigwigs down the ages.

Henry VIII, who was a martyr to it, was no stranger to a lavish diet – his idea of a breakfast roll was a goose stuffed with a pheasant stuffed with a grouse stuffed with a pigeon stuffed with a partridge.

All of those are high in purines – chemical compounds that form uric acid in the blood, which in turn forms tiny grating crystals in the joints.

Columbus, Da Vinci, Michelangelo and Nostradamus were sufferers, but like the gluttonous Tudor monarch they had shuffled off, wincing and wailing, long before port was invented in the late 17th century.

So, too much fortified wine from the massive cellars in Vila Nova de Gaia, facing Porto across the Douro, doesn’t cause gout, but too much beer does. I’m doomed.

*Millions of litres of port wine are stored and aged in Taylor’s cellars in Vila Nova de Gaia*

By early afternoon the rain had stopped and steam was rising from the paving outside the hotel as the sun clocked on for the afternoon shift. It was time to head back out.

Port is said to be the perfect partner for chocolate, and it just so happens that WOW has a wine school and a chocolate factory.

My runners were still squelching, but it was with a spring in my step that I hurried off to class, where sommelier José had set up five bottles for a tasting session followed by a short exam.

He poured generously and spoke eloquently about hints of cinnamon, liquorice, Milkybar, toffee and other stuff from the sweetie shop while I made a show of twirling the glass, holding it up to the light, giving it a quick sniff and knocking back the contents.

It was only after I’d drained the last drop from the fifth sample that José told me the ‘vase’ on the table was a spittoon. Nevertheless, I got a certificate saying I’d passed the taste test with flying colours – mostly tawny and ruby.

*For the first time in my life, I hurried to school – well, it was port wine school, after all*

In the chocolate factory’s souvenir shop, the top-sellers are individual small bars with a letter of the alphabet on the label, so you can choose to spell someone’s name under the see-through lid of the long, thin presentation box.

I have a pal who has rather large lugs, so for a laugh I wrote BIG EARS for the girl behind the counter to put on his present from Porto.

However, the bars must have got rattled around in my luggage, because when we met for a pint a few days later and I handed him the box, the labels read BIG ARSE. How weird is that?

*On warm sunny mornings, breakfast on the terrace is a delight*

Breakfast next morning in the Yeatman was like a scene from Brown Thomas. I’m a Penneys man myself, but I know a Prada handbag when I see one, and each of the four French women wearing enormous Gucci sunglasses at the table next to mine had one at their feet.

Small dogs are welcome in the hotel, but not in food areas, so I sneaked a peek to see if any of my neighbours had sneaked a Peke into the Orangerie, where breakfast is served, but failed to spot any hairy little heads poking out of les dames’ sacs à main.

On warm sunny mornings, guests can enjoy their coffee and croissants or made-to-order omelettes outside – if they put down their phones long enough to stop posting jealousy-inducing photos of Porto and start tucking in.

The views of the Douro below, the houses clinging to the steep hills opposite and the arched Dom Luis metal bridge to the right sell the city in an instant to prospective first-time visitors browsing for ideas for their next weekend break.

*Spacious room with a view and a furnished terrace*

Those same views can be seen from the balcony or furnished terrace of every massive guest room and suite, where the power showers can be turned up to water cannon strength.

The beds are so big you could nearly fit all of the Waltons into one, and there’s even a pillow menu, which I didn’t bother with as I had already dined in the Yeatman’s two-Michelin-starred Gastronomic Restaurant.

It’s hard to eat when your jaw drops with the arrival of each artfully presented dish prepared under the direction of executive chef Ricardo Costa, but eat I did, relishing each forkful as if in a reverie.

*Perfection on a plate in the Yeatman’s Gastronomic Restaurant*

The day of departure dawned all too soon, but cloudless, and I slipped my feet into my runners, which had dried out overnight, thanks to the underfloor heating in the bathroom.

A taxi was waiting at the hotel entrance, where the doorman doffed his bowler hat and told the young porter to put my bag in the boot.

The lad got a tenner for his troubles, but I nearly snatched it back when he then handed me my little yellow ducklings brolly. Twenty minutes later, it was in a bin outside Porto airport.

***

GET THERE Ryanair flies several times a week from Dublin and seasonally from Belfast International to Porto.

STAY Tom was a guest of the Yeatman, where rooms start from €335 a night. See the-yeatman-hotel.com for details of special offers.