Everywhere we went we were hailed with ‘Hey, beautiful!’ in Spanish – this sadly directed not at the WB mums but at their children. Anyhow we agree wholeheartedly!

 

  

  

After listening to requests to ‘go on a horse ride’ for several days we relented. Small WB said the horse must be Brown and must be the Best. So we walked along the line and chose Ronaldo to take us on a lovely ride around the cathedral, old town and the park.

Just as we were finishing the journey, small WB said “Mummy, can we go on a white horse now?” 

 

  

  

  

 

OK so its official name is the Pabellón de la Navegación, but the boys spotted some extremely piratical-looking sailors on posters when we were still ten minutes away, so it immediately became the Pirate Museum.

This was one of the boys’ favourite days out. The Museum tells the story of Seville’s nautical history and its role in the great voyages of exploration across the Atlantic Ocean that allowed Europeans to map out the rest of the planet from the 15th century onwards. It’s a new museum and makes use of technology throughout to bring the exhibits to life.

WB mums particularly liked the story of Catalina de Erauso (aka ‘La Monja Alférez’, the Lieutenant Nun) who spent all her life disguised as a man, fighting for the King of Spain in the New World. She was so successful that in 1626 Pope Urban VIII gave her a special dispensation to allow her to continue to wear men’s clothing. The WB boys did not find her story in any way remarkable but they loved her sword!

The museum has an interactive session which lets children navigate a virtual ship. They can raise and drop sails, shoot pirates, pump out seawater and load booty or cargo. We put ours to work until they got hungry. Unfortunately the museum cafe was closed (for a wedding with 40 kids in attendance, see earlier post) so we had to pop outside to find a café where we could get a quick sandwich. Of course the concept of a quick sandwich is utter nonsense in Spain. We found nothing in existence except a local restaurant serving (at its own pace) the usual delicious tapas and wine. About four hours later we got back so that the smallies could do another round of VR shipwork. Ah, Sevilla – the home of long lunches! 

  

  

  

 
 

  

After extensive research, we’ve now determined that the WildBerry tribe prefers to inhabit urban spaces and to be near vast quantities of good coffee, big department stores (El Corte Inglés, we love you) and playgrounds. The WildBerry family tends to thrive on days out to museums, cafes, libraries and various cultural institutions and does not tend to thrive as well in rural environments. 

While the WB species sometimes like to spend time in the countryside near mountains, beaches, rivers etc, WildBerries, both old and young, tend to scream out for an ‘urban experience’ after approximately three days in the wilderness. 

We have very recently discovered that one of the most perfect environments for the WBs to thrive and grow is the warm, yet chilled, city of Seville, Spain.

WBs love it here!

From good coffee to great music, fabulous flamenco, gorgeous 30 degree weather, beautiful architecture, parks, playgrounds. Buskers everywhere playing flamenco on rusted stringed guitars and dancing on pieces of wood.  Most importantly – Seville presents amazing tapas and wine….. and children everywhere!  We stumbled across a wedding reception accidentally (as you do in Seville in September as it’s wedding season) and out of 200 places set to eat, at least 40 of them were for children. 

The little WBs got very excited to see oranges growing everywhere on trees throughout the city. Though apparently They Are Not The Only Fruit. 

Down the road from our apartment we found a friendly cafe called ‘La Plazoleta’ next to a playground and the little WBs kept asking over and over to go back there.

So in between sightseeing in Seville, the WB Mamas dragged themselves to La Plazoleta on a regular basis and sat drinking Cortados, progressing to Cervecitas at lunch time, Martinis in the early evening and vino blanco or tinto, with our tapas, depending on our mood. We all adjusted to Spanish time – our little bar didn’t open its kitchen until 9pm and the playground would be packed with small children until 11pm.

Seville is so child friendly that if we had tried to take them into a nightclub with us, we would probably have been allowed. Frankly, we were too knackered from our sightseeing, coffee-drinking, tapas and vino efforts to even consider it. Oh and all the exhausting playground supervision!

 

  

  

  

  

 
   

  

  

  

 

Little WildBerry got very excited when we told him we were going on a plane tomorrow. “Are we flying to Australia?” he asked. We gently explained that no, we were flying to Seville. This beautiful southern city was on our ‘must do’ list and we had decided flying would be the best way to get there, thus avoiding the 24 hour return drive that would otherwise be necessary to get there and back from northern Spain.

Next morning on the way to Santander airport Little WBB once again piped up: “Are we going to Australia today?” Then when we landed in Seville he said crossly, “It’s taking too long to get to Australia!” 

Both WildBerry boys have been having a ball on their holidays but there have been many occasions when they’ve missed their Nanny, their friends, their grandparents, their nursery, their Playgroups, Harriette, Home-made FishnChips, Kidzmania, Winston road, our lovely neighbours and their toys which are on the way to Australia in the ‘detainer’. These things have been missed on varying scales in precisely that order and in various other orders depending on the day or time of day. 

On another day, out of the blue, little WBB said one day while we were walking along a path: “Are we in Australia now, Mommy?” Sometimes the WildBerry mums wonder about what they’ve done and the impact it’s had on their little babies.

 

 

 

 

What better way to spend an 8th wedding anniversary than having lunch at Karlos Arguiñano’s extremely posh eponymous restaurant in the little village of Zuberoa, on the outskirts of San Sebastián?

Karlos is Spain’s answer to Jamie Oliver – Puppy (see photo) was most impressed with him and his food, as were we. 

Great thanks must go to WBB Mum’s work colleagues at the FCA who most generously funded a fine dining experience in San Sebastián as a leaving present.

Zuberoa has one of the nicest beaches we’ve seen for a long time with great sand and surf. Unfortunately the Basque Country lived up to our continuing comparisons with Ireland and it flogged rain the whole time we were there, gazing out at the wild purple Atlantic.

 

  

 

 

  

 

The boys enjoyed camping very much but there are some luxuries only to be found in more conventional accommodation. “A boy needs a sofa!” said Big WBB delightedly when we arrived at our AirBNB apartment, immediately throwing  himself onto it.

 

 

Finally we arrived in fascinating San Sebastián, a city that had long been on our wish list – only to realise that it’s real name (in Basque) is Donostia.

We had lots of fun learning a bit of Basque. The language is completely unrelated to any other in Western Europe and linguists have concluded that it pre-dates any Indo- European language. However with over 2 million speakers in this autonomous region of Spain, the language and culture it represents is a powerful force.

So we taught the boys to say Kaitxo instead of Buenos Días and launched ourselves enthusiastically into Basque traditions which (to us outsiders) seemed to mainly consist of protesting (we saw 3 official protests in 4 days) and consuming great quantities of gourmet food and drink (Pintxos, Txakoli, Sagardoa etc). 

Speaking of food – Donostia restaurants collectively have earned 16 Michelin stars (the only place in the world with more is Kyoto, Japan) and eating out is practically a competitive sport, so deciding what and where to eat in this gourmet city was a Big Challenge. Luckily the Wild Berry Boys are easy enough to feed and they like to eat good Spanish staples like calamari, prawns, olives etc. They did have a few hungry moments but that was more to do with strange Spanish customary eating times than anything else. These are something along the lines of: first breakfast at 7am, second breakfast at 10am, lunch from 2pm to approx 4pm, siesta, snack at 6pm, dinner at 10pm. Small children are expected to partake in all meals. If you eat outside of these times, you are at great risk of being served bland tourist mush. The Wild Berry Boys adjusted but sometimes were quite happy eating bland mush as well. And all the playgrounds, fountains, carousels, motorbikes, cars, diggers and statues of Don Quixote provided great entertainment while the WBB mums hung out in Pintxos bars, that is to say, supervised carefully.

We were lucky enough to be in Donostia during the Kontxako Bandera – a race where about 20 teams row fishing boats called estropada from the main beach to an island in the Bay of Biscay and back again. It was completely chaotic and crazy; we couldn’t follow anything and couldn’t see anything except for crowds of happy people decked out in the various bright team colours. It looked as though the purple team won on the day because they were the happiest and noisiest (though definitely not 100% sure on that). We listened to traditional Basque music which sounds exactly like what you would hear anywhere in the West of Ireland and the whole day had a feel just like St Patrick’s Day in Dublin – with people drinking Sagardoa and Txakoli instead of Guinness and eating Pintxos instead of Abrakebabra at the end of the night. To add to the feeling of Irishness, it flogged rain all day long but in true Celtic spirit the party carried on regardless.

 

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

 

We were 20 minutes away from Lourdes so decided to visit. What can we say. We had the best cup of Barry’s Tea in months and the WBBs had scrambled eggs and Irish sausages for breakfast (they were getting sick of chocolate croissants, who would have thought we’d see the day!)

Judging by the accents around town about 80% of the people in Lourdes at any one time are Irish. A small minority of French people live there I think.

I hope everyone who goes there is cured of whatever ails them. I was hoping WBB1 might be cured of the ‘talking at the top of his voice’ syndrome but sadly, no. Also had hoped WBB2 would get some relief from his brazen stubbornness but also no. So, don’t rush hopefully to Lourdes with your smallies on our account.
 

  

  

  

  

 

… You have ruined us for camping, forever.

A crossroads has been reached. The Wild Berry Mamas have decided: enough camping. The Mistral has been blowing; autumn is coming, our fleeces have been unpacked, and we want fridges in our lives again.

A route has been planned and we have mapped out the last leg of our European trip. But from this point on we’ll stay in apartments.

As Little WB said: “We will stay in a hotel so the mosquitoes can’t bite us anymore.”