Spacibo-Gracias, Have a Taste of Russia and Spain: September 2015

Well, if you travel to Galicia...

...in Vigo you have to visit Churruca .

Most bars there are only open from late evening on, but couple of them also earlier like one of my favorite bars called La Casa de Arriba:

More suggestions check my other story about Galician bars.

And if you visit Basque Country (Euskadi)...

...in Bilbao (Bilbo) you should visit the Goienkalea -street. There you can find many kind of very basque bars...

...and also nice bars nearby, like for example the Bar Ormaetxe...

And in Bilbao you can find also the very known concert venue called Kafé Antzokia , there are some nice bars in the same street too.

In San Sebastian (Donostia), the street to go is Kalea Juan de Bilbao

So in Spain try something else for a change than Madrid or the southern part of Spain!

...as have done maybe Snufkin by Tove Jansson...

Yes as in Switzerland, they have also very interesteresting ancient traditions in Basque Country. What come for exampel to local Sports. Maybe you have seen some films where they practise some of these local Sports like the first film of the very known Spanish Director Julio Medem. the film is called "Vacas" (Beiak).

Well, on the countryside there are plenty of possibilities to see these rural sports and there is also a big festival of one week and couple of days more called "Euskal Jaiak" in the beginning of September. I took part in Euskal Jaiak 5 years ago in San Sebastian (Donostia).

Then once again, I visited also some of the nearby small cities of San Sebastian. They organize there also these kind of festivities. I wrote an article about "Euskal Jaiak". The article is in Finnish, including also info about the festivities of similar kind in Switzerland. More about the Swiss celebrities of this kind in my blog " Gruss und Grüezi-Mementos from Germany and Switzerland".

But what was kind of interesting then, it was very difficult to find information about the festival in beforehand. I as an freelancer had to phone to the city hall of San Sebastian couple of days before the festival begun and collect some info from there, that is when arriving to San Sebastian... Maybe they think this kind of festival is only interesting for locals? Anyway I noticed that they have put at least now the progamme in the web page.

During the Festival you can taste local cidre.

You can follow "Aizkolari" , Wood-chopping competition and "Basque pelota".

By the way...I by chance had in Bilbao in the year 2013 the possibility to follow the Padel World Championships.

Padel is the game which comes originally from Mexico, if I remember right. It is played in Spanish speaking countries, and I suppose at the moment elsewhere too. To Finland it came less than 10 years ago. Well, I think they organize Padel World Championschips every second year and so this year in Miami.

During "Euskal Jaiak" you can also follow Regatta-competitions.