A Taste of Northern Spain: The Basque Country, Navarra, La Rioja, Burgos and Madrid with Gerry Dawes Wednesday, April 30, 2025 - Sunday, May 11, 2025

 

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 (11 Days, 10 Nights, with the option of extra days in Madrid)

Join a Spanish Adventure Designed, Organized and Guided by Acclaimed Spanish Gastronomy, Wine & Culture Expert Gerry Dawes

 

 Food and Wine Road Warrior Gerry Dawes in Burgos, Spain

 

About Gerry Dawes 

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.

"Before the golden age of food travel media, and long before Spain became the world’s most exciting food destination, there was Gerry Dawes. A walking (and eating) encyclopedia of Spanish food and culture—from tapas to the culinary innovators, from artisan winemakers and cheesemakers to the sites only the locals know—Gerry has chronicled them all.  Like few others, he continues to inspire and inform a generation of food writers, travelers, and chefs like me." – Dan Barber, Chef at Blue Hill New York and Blue Hill at Stone Barns, author of The Third Plate:  Field Notes on the Future of Food.

  

This trip is based on experiences I have over several decades and from recent intensive trips to northern Spain in and 2024.  We will be accompanied by Gerry’s partner Kay Balun, who has been on numerous trips to Spain, helps with logistics and assures that the trip runs as smoothly as possible.

 $4,995 per person, without airfare; $895 single supplement.

Tours & Conditions and Sign-up sheet available to interested parties. (e-mail me at  gerrydawes@aol.com.

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.