Spain and Maine trip recap

As a trip recap, Sophia and I spent a week for her family’s reunion in Maine and then we hopped over to Spain for a week afterwards. We had a night in Boston, then Portland, and then hopped to North Port for the rest of the week.

Maine is one of the most gorgeous parts of the country and perhaps one of the most delicious as well with it’s abundance of seafood. Naturally, I ate a ton of amazing oysters, lobsters, and clams. There’s nothing like cracking open a freshly steamed lobster on a porch overlooking the tranquil Maine waters.

We didn’t do too much in Boston or Portland. It was a lot of relaxing, walking around, and eating great food. It was the perfect start to kick off our trip. The last time I was in Maine was in 2016 and I was happy to see that not much has changed for the better. We casually drove up the Maine coast stopping in a few towns and lobster shacks along the way.

I was able to meet the rest of Sophia’s family at the reunion. I was happy to meet the other side of her family for the first time as they are relatively spread out on the east coast. I also appreciated that our days and nights weren’t too planned. We all sat down and had dinner together, but the family largely chose their activities during the day. It was great being able to spend some extended time the family.

After almost a week in Maine, Sophia and I drove back to Boston to fly into Barcelona to kick off the second part of our trip. It was a relatively stressful couple of flights which included delays and intense jetlag after a long day of driving to Boston with her parents. But we made it and after a short nap, we were able to get to Cal Pep for a tapas dinner and capped off the night at Paradiso with a cocktail.

Sophia and I really enjoyed the 4 days and nights we spent in Barcelona. We were worried that we may get bored while there but that was never an issue for us as we filled our days with exploring, eating, and shopping. The Sagrada is one of the most impressive structures I’ve seen and walking around the old town exploring never got old.

Spain is one of the countries where the food really lives up to it’s hype and I’d argue that it could give Italy a run for it’s money as top European food country. From fine dining to hole in the wall type of joints to international food, I was impressed back when I visited for the first time a few years ago and I was even more impressed this time around… particularly in Basque country.

Sophia and I hopped over to San Sebastian after Barcelona. At this point of my life, I’ve been fortunate to see a lot of great places but San Sebastian is definitely in the top 3 with the other 2 being Tokyo and Koh Lipe.

It’s hard for me to imagine many better places to vacation than in San Sebastian. You have an old town on a peninsula with beautiful beaches to the west and east of the town. The surrounded landscape is stunning. On top of the natural beauty, San Sebastian is best known as the culinary capital of Spain and I immediately saw why once I stepped into Old Town and started our pintxos tour.

Nearly every bar in Old Town is a pintxos bar which is the Basque version of tapas. The idea here is that you stop in each bar, have a drink or two and eat some pintxos. Then you hop onto the next bar and do it again. This was an absolute dream for me as I happily bar hopped all evening drinking great cheap wine and beer to accompany my many pintxos.

The days can be spent exploring or on the beach. Then when you need a break, you just hop into Old Town and get some pintxos and wine. The word on the street is that the area has the most Michelin stars per capita as well, but Sophia and I were more than content eating the pintxos versus doing the fine dining route especially because Sophia is pregnant. Perhaps next time.

This was my kind of vacation and I loved my time in San Sebastian. I will undoubtedly be back here at some point. I have been harsh on the European food scene and have gone to say it is overrated as a whole, but Spain seems to always deliver and it’s why I keep coming back every couple of years.

I feel recharged and good to go again, but I’m already looking forward to our next big trip. Things may be different next time around with a baby on the way, but both Sophia and I have no plans to stop traveling.