Mountains climbed: 1 (1900 feet)
Distance walked: 6.9 (hard) miles (up 1300 feet, down 1900 feet)
Taxi rides: 1 (we skipped the first four miles and 600 feet up)
Maximum heart rate on ridiculously steep first part: 139 (I think my watch alarms when it passes 140)
Number of times during the hike when we wished we had taken the lower route: at least five
Number of times we wished we had taken the lower route after we finished: 0
Most expensive menu del dia: €31.5 (but it was really excellent)
Darling little seaside towns entered: 1 (Pasajes aka in Basque Pasaia was lovely)
We decided we could handle the Purgatorio route. We did but just barely. See a later post on this. There will also be one on Pasajes.
If you look closely at the main courses on the menu you will see that they got the translations of the first two dishes mixed up.
And, what were your choices?
You are right, Henry. I hadn’t noticed that! What did we choose: fish soup, fish pudding, steak, langostinas, cheese cake, and apple pie. (The steak came with some yummy roasted peppers.)
I was hoping one of you had the fish pudding, because I want to know what it is/was like. Especially because many members of the scorpionfish family are poisonous. Maybe “pudding” is a bad translation? Perhaps a “terrine”?
Yes, the “scorpion” in the fish name made me pause. But we wanted to try something new. It was good. Kind of like an aspic but not quite as gelatenous. It did seem kind of puddling-like (American-style pudding), maybe a little firmer.
The fish “pudding” consisted of two halves. One side was all fish, it looked a bit like tuna. The other half was gelatin like. We saw it the next day as a pincho in a bar in San Sebastián.