Krik's Picks

One of my goals for the trip my wife and I took to France last autumn was to learn more about French wine. I've always felt uncertain about ordering French wine. Show me a wine list, and I can be fairly confident about picking a good wine from California or Italy or Argentina. But not so for the wines from France. The irony is, on our past trips to France, we've always liked the wine with our meals. Often we would just order a carafe of house wine, and often it would be a Bordeaux. Then, when we'd return home, if I tried to order a French wine at a restaurant, too often it didn't live up to our expectations. So on this trip, we planned a 4-night stay in Bordeaux specifically to become more knowledgeable about the nuances of wine that's produced there. Saint-Emilion  During our stay, we did 2 wine-oriented day trips. One day we joined a bus tour to the Medoc region, where we visited 2 chateaus and tasted their wine. The first was Chateau D'Arsac and the ...

If I had known how easy it would be, I would have more seriously considered taking the train from Paris to San Sebastian, rather than flying. I had read some reviews online that made me think that the Euskotren from Hendaya to San Sebastián would be unreliable. I recalled the hassles of using the commuter train from Naples to Sorrento and worried that the Euskotren would be like that.  So as I explained in the previous post , we ended up flying from Paris to Biarritz and then took a bus to San Sebastian. Then, after our very enjoyable stay in San Sebastian, we had to figure out how to get back to France and to our next destination - Bordeaux. I was very frustrated and had gotten to the point where I considered renting a car one-way. Fortunately, my wife insisted that we ask for help.  Our very helpful staff person at Lagazpi Doce  reassured us that the best option was to take the Euskotren. She told us that the station was nearby and that since it was a commuter train...

Technically, I suppose legally, our trip last autumn included 4 countries - France, Spain, Portugal, and Morocco. But actually, the time we spent in San Sebastian really should have counted as a fifth country - Euskadi , the Basque Country. The food, the people, the language (sure, they all speak Spanish, but among themselves, they speak euskara ) all are distinctly Basque. Even the name of the city is differentiated; call it San Sebastian if you want, but you'd better understand that locally it's called Donostia. This was the second city in a long trip that my wife and I took. In many ways, it was my favorite. Getting here from Paris did present some logistical challenges. I considered taking a train. But that would have taken most of a day. So we decided to fly to Biarritz and then took a bus to San Sebastian. We had to get up early to get to the airport, and then after we arrived in Biarritz, we waited for about an hour for the bus. It wasn't bad, but in the end, we mi...