Sometimes the journey planned the least turns out to be one of the best (I recently heard this somewhere else, but will repurpose for this post). It was Easter holiday season again, and as usual we had two important birthdays to celebrate — Teo and Chika. Our first thought was to go to Japan, but tickets were hard to find and it could have been a bit risky if at the last minute Chika needed to take care of things for work.

Then in early February I started hunting around where we could go — flights had just gotten quite expensive after the pandemic, and Easter flights were even worse. With some dormant BA miles, I starting to see some options for Madrid opening up. And then Chika sent me this picture with the caption “Dream Trip”:

Now we had a mission! With some more due diligence we started to sort out our travel. It was easier to fly from Munich directly to Bilbao rather than connecting in Madrid — plus with both of us having status for Lufthansa we could finally bring both boys into the lounge. I started booking some hotels at the start and the end of the trip, plus flights from San Sebastian with a layover in Madrid on the way home, and then paused for a while.

When Chika’s friends from her ski club also planned to be in San Sebastian, I decided to lock down proper accommodations in the city center. After reading lots of Airbnb reviews about how noisy apartments were in the old town, I ended up finding a listing which looked quite dreamy — a penthouse with views of the ocean just a block from the old town. You can see a teaser here:

And then we put the trip to the side for a while to deal with all the regular storm of activities which happen before holidays arrive (including a proposal which Chika had to submit on the second day of the holiday.)

Finally, the time had come. Chika and the boys took the train down to meet me in Munich. Sadly was delayed for hours, but finally we were all together. The next day, I took the boys so Chika could get her proposal out of the way. Thanks to our friend Konstantin, we had a great day of jump house, Vietnamese food, and Japanese grocery shopping.

The next morning, we travelled to the airport to catch our flight to Bilbao. Easy travels with a nice breakfast in the lounge and just some minor departure delays. When we landed in Spain, the weather was slightly overcast and that was the only day we didn’t have full sunshine. With a taxi ride to our hotel downtown, we had officially begun the Spanish tour. We stayed at the Radisson Collection Hotel, which was excellent. Beautiful rooms, amazing rooftop, and the favorite breakfast of the trip.

Then the eating and drinking started. Walking from the hotel, we headed to Plaza Nueva a 19th century square not inhabited by an amazing collection of pintxos (small plates/taps) restaurants. It was heaven. Seafood, tacos, cheeses, jambalaya… a gigantic orgy of foods, with amazing wines. Within a few hours we had consumed too much food and wine for the middle of the afternoon and headed back to the hotel for a nap. If it weren’t for Kai, I probably wouldn’t have gone out at all, but we ended up at a small japanese sushi/poke restaurant for a late night bite followed by a hunt for a open shop to buy beer (which was unsuccessful).

The next day we enjoyed our breakfast, and the boys and I went exploring around town while Chika finished her proposal. We then met up to check out the funicular cable car to check the views to the city. Wandering back, we went into a second round of pintxos hunting culminating at Ledesma where we had amazing fresh monkfish.

The next morning we slowly packed and organized and walked across to the station to grab our rental car. After waiting for the attendant to return, we picked up our Audi Q2 (I thought why not check out the competition) and with some helpful explanation from the staff learned how to expand the trunk so our luggage could fit. We stopped in Haro, very famous for its many wineries in the area, and had a fantastic lunch with salads (hard to come by apparently) and had one of the best wines of the trip (at much better pricing than shown here).

Then came one of the highlights of the trip — a stay at the Hotel Marqués de Riscal. This hotel designed by Frank Ghery sits in the middle of the Marqués de Riscal winery. We had a lovely time enjoy the giant room, the spa, the winery tours, and the restaurant. And a magical place to celebrate Teo’s big 10th birthday.

Our next stop was a winery/wine museum created by the family of the Vivanco brands. The scale and design was amazing, followed by a multi course lunch (with unlimited wine).

We took a simple approach for our bridge night, staying in Logrono (our more ambitious idea of driving up to France was dampened by all the protests due to increase in retirement age). A very nice city with a small old town very pleasant for walking.

After morning workout and breakfast, it was time to head into the grand finale of the trip – San Sebastian. The drive was pleasant through all the vinyards and finally arriving through a mountain pass we saw the beauty of the sea. We found our way to our hotel, dropped our rental car, and then started again the eating progression. The density of pintxos joints in the old town is inconceivable — the mind wants 1000x more than could possibly fit in the stomach. But we managed.

The boys wanted to hit the beach, so I brought them while Chika went to explore the mountain top cable car views. I couldn’t believe that in April with sub 20 temperatures the boys would go in. Surprisingly I couldn’t get them out.

The next day we had another highlight momement: Chika’s birthday lunch at Arzak. What an amazing experience of food an service — the staff was amazing. We will never forget it.

The next morning, we were meeting Chika’s friends for breakfast with their young son, which kicked off another day of eating (and more beach). When it was finally time to leave, it was almost painful to exit this paradise.

Our last stop was a layover day in Madrid. As we had super early flights, I had booked an airport hotel. My Diamond status pushed me to stay at the Hilton. It’s a great hotel and our rooms were massive. Plus the happy hour was a fun way to wind down after our tour of the Mercado de San Miguel (think of a food court of epic foods and drinks) and the Prado Museum.

We had so much fun, it’s hard to believe this was our first family tour to Spain. But it definitely won’t be our last.