Gerry Dawes is a writer-photographer and author of Sunset in a Glass: Adventures of a Food and Wine Road Warrior in Spain, who lived in Spain for eight years and has made more than 125 trips to Spain. He has spoken frequently on on Spanish gastronomy, wine and cultural themes and has organized and led more than twenty customized gastronomy, wine and cultural tours to Spain.
Gerry Dawes has led multiple tours for some of the best-known American chefs, culinarians, food and wine aficionados and Spain enthusiasts, including Chefs Thomas Keller, Michael Lomonaco, Mark Miller (seven times), Mark Kiffin, James Campbell Caruso, Michael Chiarello, Norman Van Aken, Terrance Brennan, Michael Ginor, Christopher Gross and others such luminaries as Author Rozanne Gold, Restaurants Consultant Michael Whiteman, Baseball great Keith Hernandez and U. S. Senator James Abourezk, plus such groups the Commonwealth Club of California (twice), the 61st Tactical Fighter Squadron (twice), the World Trade Center Club and the Club Chefs of NY & CT.
In addition to being awarded Spain's prestigious Premio Nacional de Gastronómía He was a finalist for the James Beard Foundation's Journalism Award for Best Magazine Writing on Wine, won The Cava Institute's First Prize for Journalism for his article on cava and received the 2009 Association of Food Journalists Second Prize for Best Food Feature in a Magazine for his Food Arts retrospective piece on Catalan star chef, Ferran Adrià.
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Itinerary (B, L, D, T = Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, Tapas)
Photographs by Gerry Dawes©2024.
Day 00 Wednesday, April 30, 2025
Fly from home cities via Spanish or European gateway cities to Bilbao, The Basque Country, Spain
Museo Guggenheim Bilbao.
Day 01 Thursday, May 1 Bilbao
Group arrives separately at Bilbao airport and take taxis or airport bus to our centrally located hotel in Bilbao.
We will meet in the lobby of our hotel at 14:00 (2 p. m.) and depart for lunch at an excellent tapas restaurant near Museo Guggenheim Bilbao.
After lunch, I will offer the option of exploring Bilbao on foot. We will visit la Plaza Nueva in the old quarter and walk around the magnificent Frank Gehry-designed Museo Guggenheim Bilbao, which I have been photographing periodically since before it officially opened in October 1997. For those interested, there will be the option to visit the interior of the museum.
After our walking visit in Bilbao, we will be free to relax, take a siesta, do more exploring or shop in this vibrant city.
At 20:00 (8 p. m.), we will meet in the lobby, have an optional cocktail or refreshment, then walk just a block from our hotel to a wonderful seafood-centric restaurant. In July, 2024 (and on previous visits) I ate at this restaurant and its sister restaurant several times, once with a dozen presenters from The Hemingway Society Conference. I look forward to sharing this restaurant with you.
Since many of you will have recently arrived from trans-ocean flights, we will make an early night of it to be fresh for tomorrow’s adventures.
Hotel Ercilla, Bilbao.
Day 02 Friday, May 2 Bilbao – The Basque Country – Getaria B, L
In the morning, we will have breakfast in our hotel, then visit the colorful La Ribera market, which overlooks the Nervion River in Bilbao, before departing for an hour’s ride through the green mountains and countryside, stopping at one of the dramatically situated fishing villages on the Basque coast.
In late morning, we will arrive in the beautiful fishing village of Getaria, which is just 30 kilometers west of San Sebastián. Getaria may truly be the greatest fishing village in the world in both the fish harvesting off its coast and the quality of the seafood restaurants in this town, which are astounding. Literally, the greatest fish restaurant in the world may be in Getaria.
Gerry Dawes with the great maestro parillero (grill meister) Pello Arruabarrena and a whole grilled rodaballo (turbot) at Kaia in Getaria. Pello, now 27 years at the grills at Kaia, worked on fishing boats for 12 years.
Getaria is the birthplace of Juan Sebastián Elkano, the first man to circumnavigate the earth (Magellan was killed in the Philippines and Elkano brought the one surviving ship of the expedition back to Spain). It is also the hometown of the late famous fashion designer Cristóbal Balenciaga, in whose honor the village opened the Balenciaga Museum a few years ago, and of Pepita Embril, a famous zarzuela and operetta soprano and the mother of the great opera singer Plácido Domingo.
Port, Getaria.
We will check into our charming boutique hotel, then we will walk a couple of village blocks to have lunch in a stunning restaurant overlooking the Bay of Biscay, the port and the Basque Coast. We will enjoy txangurro, a legendary Basque crab dish, and share whole rodaballo (turbot) grilled of wood coals, accompanied by some surprising wines from the owner’s cellar. This restaurant is one of the most memorable places I have ever eaten. I have brought several famous American chefs, writers and personalities here for lunch.
We will visit this small village, see the two statues to Elkano and the village church, which has Elkano’s tomb, the port and the chapel of la Virgen del Carmen, the fisherman’s Madonna, which is beneath an archway over the street where fishermen stop on their way to the port to pay their respects to the virgin before heading out into the often wild Atlantic Ocean.
After our long lunch, the evening will be free to relax or form small groups to explore this charming small town and find your own tapas bars and restaurants from a list of recommendations or just relax and have a drink at an outdoor café.
Day 03 Saturday, May 3 Getaria – San Sebastián B, L, D
Kay Balun at breakfast in Getaria.
Weather permitting, we will have breakfast at our hotel on an outdoor terrace with spectacular views of the Bay of Biscay, then depart for a half-hour ride to the splendid seaside city of San Sebastián, one of the most elegant and beautiful cities in Spain.
We will check into our hotel near the old quarter and the magnificent La Concha beach, then I will lead our travellers on an orientation tour of the old quarter with its multitude a of pintxos (Basque for tapas) bars and quaint and original shops of full of treasures available only in the Basque Country. You will be free to wander, explore or even walk the spectacular La Concha beach. Around two p.m., we will gather at a central meeting point in the old quarter, and I will lead us to a traditional restaurant for lunch on typical Basque dishes.
The afternoon will be free to enjoy San Sebastián. Once you experience this place, you will be grateful for having the free time to enjoy the city on your own.
In the evening, we will meet and take a short bus ride to Monte Igueldo, which overlooks San Sebastián and the splendid Bahía de la Concha. We will stop at a hotel overlooking the city and weather permitting, we will have an optional drink on the terrace, then have dinner in a Michelin-starred restaurant serving cocina de vanguardia, the Spanish avant-garde creative cuisine that made San Sebastián one of the most famous restaurant cities in the world.
San Sebastián.
After dinner will be free for optional drinks in one of several recommended local bars.
Day 04 Sunday, May 4 San Sebastián B, L
We will have breakfast in the hotel and pass a leisurely morning, strolling la Concha beach, re-visiting the old quarter, or shopping.
Since Sunday will be a mandated free day for our bus driver, we will take a city bus to the nearby port of Pasajes de San Pedro, where we will catch the little ferry that crosses the inlet every 15 minutes to Pasaia Donibane (Pasajes de San Pedro), where we will stroll this very picturesque inlet-side Basque village, where Victor Hugo once spent a year. In a very special traditional cuisine restaurant overlooking the water we while away an afternoon over a long, leisurely Spanish luncheon.
Pasaia Donibane.
We will catch the ferry and bus back to the center of San Sebastián where the afternoon will be free (once you experience San Sebastián, you will thank me).
In the evening, we will join the paseo and stroll over a few blocks for an optional pintxo bar hopping tour of the Casco Viejo of San Sebastián. I will leave one third of our group in one bar and show you what to order, then a second group in another bar and a third in another, then we will rotate with Kay and me floating between groups. If we can find space for the whole group at one special place, we will end the evening’s outing with the legendary tarta de queso quemada vasca, “burnt Basque cheesecake.”
Mushrooms at a great pintxos bar in San Sebastián.
Day 05 Monday, May 5 San Sebastián – Pamplona B, L, D
After breakfast this morning, we will ride an hour through the beautiful mountains of the Basque country to Pamplona, the capital of Navarra, which was made famous by Ernest Hemingway in this novel The Sun Also Rises for its Fiestas de San Fermín and the running of the bulls.
Encierro, running of the bulls, Pamplona (only in July).
We will check into our centrally located hotel, then take a walking tour of the old quarters of Pamplona, including the route of the encierro, the running of the bulls, which will conclude at the Plaza de Toros, where there is a statue of Ernest Hemingway. This walk will also include the impressive monument to the encierro. We will stop at the market and shop for ingredients for our evening meal, which I will be cooking, with help from some of our fellow travelers, at the Casino social club above the famous Café Iruña.
Before lunch, we will convene at a suitable venue, where I will give a PowerPoint presentation on Hemingway, San Fermín and the Pyrenean villages where Hemingway went trout fishing, villages which we will tour tomorrow.
We will have lunch at a traditional restaurant near the bullring.
The rest of the afternoon, except for those of us who will be preparing our dinner, will be free to explore Pamplona, which has many outdoor cafés around the Plaza de Castillo, the lively epicenter of Pamplona and is the hub of the fiestas each July.
Plaza del Castillo, Pamplona
In the evening, our group will gather for pre-dinner drinks at the Casino de Pamplona (not a gambling casino, but the city’s main social club). Our dinner will be a clone of the meals at famous sociedades gastronómicas of the Basque Country and Navarra, communal social clubs with stocked kitchens where members, many of them highly skilled cooks, prepare meals for their fellow socios. I will be cooking a menu based on my own interpretations of several Basque and Navarrese dishes. We will have as my guests several friends from Pamplona and Navarra. And, if we are lucky, we may even hear a few jotas, sung by our guests.
Friends cooking for friends at the Casino de Pamplona.
You may want to follow dinner with a drink in the Plaza or at the Café Iruña’s Rincón de Hemingway, where there is a life-size bronze station of Hemingway standing at the bar.
Pamplona, life-size statue of Ernest Hemingway at the bar at Café Iruña.
Day 06 Tuesday, May 6 Pamplona – Pyrenees Villages – Pamplona B, L, D
In the morning, we will depart by bus for an hour’s trip to the villages of the Pyrenees with our first stop at the historic monastery of Roncesvalles, one of the most important stops on the Camino de Santiago and the first major shrine after Camino walkers cross the mountains from France into Spain. After Roncesvalles, we return 3 kms. south to the village of Burguete to have breakfast at Hostal Burguete, where Hemingway’s characters Jake Barnes and Bill Gorton stayed, then hiked fifteen miles round trip to fish for trout. We will see the piano that the Bill Gorton character played in The Sun Also Rises and the room where Hemingway supposedly stayed (it was not his room because it is on the third floor which was not built until the 1930s)—The Sun Also Rises was set in 1925.
After Burguete, we will ride 15 minutes to the Fábrica de Orbaitzeta, the small village alongside a de-commissioned 19th-century munitions factory. We will take a short walk to see the setting where Hemingway placed Jake Barnes and Bill Gorton for the trout fishing scenes, including the spring where Jake Barnes cooled the two bottles of wine that they had carried 7 and 1/2 miles to have with their lunch.
The Hemingway spring on the trail above the village of Orbaitzeta.
After Orbaitzeta, we will stop at the Medieval stone bridge over the Irati River (contrary to popular belief Hemingway’s characters did not fish the Irati River in The Sun Also Rises, they fished the tributaries that we will have just seen at Orbaitzeta).
Kay Balun on the Medieval bridge over the Irati River at Arive.
We will continue along the southern foothills of the Pyrenees passing through some beautiful small villages to the town of Ochagavia, through which the Anduña, a mountain trout stream, runs to join the Salazar river at the edge of town. We will explore Ochagavia briefly on our way to lunch at a restaurant that serves the wonderful traditional food of Navarra, which we will accompany as at all our meal in Navarra with the fine rosados and vinos tintos of Navarra.
Ochagavia
After lunch, we will visit the high mountain town of
Roncal, which produces one of the most famous cheeses in Spain and is the
hometown of the great 19th century soprano Gayarre, whose tomb we
will see in the local cemetery. South of
town, we will visit the cheese works that produces one of the best cheeses in
the region, one that is available in the United States, but can be purchased
here and brought back in your luggage.
Larra is the top cheese of Roncal.
We leave Roncal and head back to Pamplona, stopping along the way to see the town of Sangüesa and the important 13th-century Romanesque façade of its Iglesia de Santa María la Real, then onto Pamplona to arrive in early evening.
Iglesia de Santa María la Real, Sangüesa.
Dinner will be at one of the best restaurants in northern Spain, just steps from la Plaza del Castillo in Pamplona.
Chef Pilar Idoate, Restaurante Europa, Pamplona.
Day 07 Wed., May 7 Pamplona – Puente la Reina – Olite – Tudela B, L, D
After breakfast at our hotel, we will say Adios, Pamplona, adiós, Pamplona, ¡cuándo te volveré a ver! (when will I return to see you again), as the San Fermín song goes by fiesta-goers lamenting that they have to leave Pamplona, which is a spiritual home for many of them.
We will travel less than half an hour southwest to the Camino de Santiago town of Puente la Reina, which has a 12th-century Romanesque stone bridge over which the pilgrims pass with its lovely arches reflected in the Arga River, the river that flows below the hill on which Pamplona perches. We will ride on the back roads of Navarra via the walled town of Artajona to the castle village of Olite, a wonderful small town which we will explore on foot, then have lunch a typical asador-grill restaurant in the village.
Olite
After lunch, we ride forty minutes south to the marvelous town of Tudela, the capital of La Ribera del Ebro, the great vegetable and wine growing region of Navarra. We will check into our hotel in a historic 18th-century building that is just a block from the Plaza de Los Fueros, the heart of Tudela. We will take a walking tour of the old quarter of Tudela, home to Christians, Moors and Jews in Middle Ages and birthplace of the famous wandering Jew Benjamín de Tudela. The Cathedral of Tudela has one of the greatest Romanesque doorways in Christendom and the cloister has the remains of the synagogue that once stood here.
La Plaza de los Fueros, Tudela (during the Fiestas de Santa Ana in late July).
The rest of the afternoon will be free to enjoy exploring Tudela or relaxing at one of the outdoor cafés in la Plaza de los Fueros.
In the evening, we will meet in the lobby of our hotel and stroll to a restaurant in la Plaza de los Fueros, we will dine on dishes based on vegetables grown in the chef’s own gardens in la mejana, an area along the Ebro River dedicated to kitchen gardens. During and after dinner, we will likely hear some jota singers, for Tudela is the epicenter for jotas. In fact, I will be inviting some of them to join us for dinner.
Chef Luis Salceda, Restaurante Remigio, Tudela in the artichoke patch in his kitchen garden.
Day 08 Thursday, May 8 Tudela – Corella – Tudela B, L
We will spend a leisurely morning in Tudela, then ride half an hour to the west to the town of Corella, where we will visit a winery which has some of the best wines in Navarra, including one of the world’s greatest rosados (rosés). After our winery visit, we will go to one of my favorite restaurants in northern Spain, whose chef is a friend of mine for many years. He specializes in dishes featuring the exceptional vegetables of this region—white asparagus, artichokes, cardoons, pimiento de piquillo and bean dishes, along with such unforgettable dishes as cabrito asado (roast goat) and glorious desserts. We will accompany this wonderful food with plenty of those vinos we tasted earlier. The winery owner will likely be our guest at this memorable meal.
Cabrito (roast kid) with patatas
panaderas (classic baker's style potatoes)
and the wines of Carlos Aliaga at El Crucero Restaurante, Corella
(Navarra).
After lunch, we will return to Tudela where the rest of the afternoon will be free to explore and enjoy Tudela on your own and discover your own culinary surprises from a list of recommended restaurants (we will assist in making reservations through our hotel).
Day 09 Friday, May 9 Tudela – La Rioja – Burgos B, L, D
After breakfast, we will depart for one of Spain’s greatest wine regions, La Rioja. We will visit a magical winery in Haro, the capital of la Rioja Alta, then ride half an hour to a family winery in southern Rioja, where we will visit another bodega (winery), whose cellars in man-made caves that were hand-hewn into the soft rock of the hill overlooking the village. We will tour the winery, then sample the wines over a lunch in the family merendero (the bodega’s rustic dining room complete with a chimenea, a fireplace where the winery owner will roast baby lamb chops over grapevine cuttings, which we will enjoy with his own Spanish tortilla de patatas, salad and chorizo.
Bodegas Lecea in La Rioja where a fire of sarmientos, grape vine cuttings, over which they will cook chorizos and lamb chops, is burning down to proper level for roasting the meat.
After our bodega visit and lunch, an hour’s drive will bring us to Burgos, one of the great monumental cities of northern Spain, a town for which Gerry Dawes wrote an article that was published on the front page of The New York Times Travel Section.
Cathedral of Burgos.
After checking into our hotel, we will take a walking tour of the Casco Viejo, the old quarter of Burgos, which has one of the most majestic Gothic cathedrals in the world. You will be free until dinner to explore on your own, shop and relax.
Jorge García and Vermút at my favorite Vermutería Victoria in Burgos.
Before dinner, those interested can join me for an optional vermút at one of Spain’s greatest vermouth bars, whose owner produces his own brand of vermút rojo. From the Vermutería, it is just a short stroll across the square in front of the illuminated cathedral to a restaurant with outdoor tables where we will enjoy a dinner of classic Castilian specialties.
Day 10, Saturday, May 10 Burgos – Madrid B, L, T
We will strive for wheels up at 09:00 to head two hours south to Madrid, where we will check into our downtown hotel.
Optional visit to the Prado Museum and/or the Reina Sofia modern art museum or the Thyssen-Bornemisza museum.
Prado Museum.
We will walk from our hotel through old Madrid to an emblematic restaurant with traditional cuisine, where we will have lunch and a grand old time.
The afternoon will be free to explore, shop or take a siesta.
Flamenco in Madrid.
In the early evening we have the option to meet at our hotel, then stroll into old Madrid to see an early Flamenco performance, after which we will take taxis to the far side of Retiro Park, Madrid’s Central Park, and have dinner at a couple of the great tapas restaurants in this area, ending at the tapas bar that has been frequented by many famous chefs whom I have taken there. Here we will have our farewell meal for those leaving tomorrow.
Tapas hopping with a few friends at Rafa in Madrid.
Gerry Dawes, Tetsuya
Wakuda, Rochelle Smith, Livia Iaccarino (Don Alfonso 1890)
Janet Van Aken, Charlie Trotter, Norman Van Aken. Photo: Don Alfonso
Iaccarino.
Day 11, Sunday, May 11 Madrid B
End of Tour, Option to Stay in Madrid Extra
Days
Option to fly to home cities or stay Sunday and/or Monday in Madrid. For those staying, there will be the option in the morning to visit more museums and sites in Madrid.
Gerry Dawes and legendary Casa Lucio owner Lucio Blásquezat lunch at Casa Lucio, Cava Baja, Madrid.
We will gather in early afternoon, visit an old Hemingway hangout and have an optional leisurely Spanish Sunday lunch at a restaurant renowned for its regional specialties.
Afternoon and evening free with an optional outing for dinner with Gerry Dawes and Kay Balun and some Madrid friends.
Day 12 Monday, May 12 Madrid – Home Cities
Optional extra day in Madrid. Possible day trip to Toledo.
Each traveller or couple departs separately by taxi or airport bus for Madrid airport.
--End--More true than Don Quixote's vapouring?
Hath winged Pegasus more nobly trod
Than Rocinante stumbling up to God?
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36. Gerry Dawes's Spain: An Insider's Guide to Spanish Food, Wine, Culture and Travel
About Gerry Dawes
Gerry Dawes can be reached at gerrydawes@aol.com; Alternate e-mail (use only if your e-mail to AOL is rejected): gerrydawes@gmail.com
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