After San Sebastián we had a break from the big cities with a roadtrip through the Pyrenees. Our first day we headed from from San Sebastián‎ to Aínsa. Aínsa is a small town in the center of the Spanish Pyrenees which has an old quarter that dates back about 1000 years. It was incredibly charming, cute, and quiet, plus served as a great base for exploration of the Pyrenees.  We stayed in a little hotel built into the walls of the old city which was restored a few years ago in a style we loved, perfectly blending clean contemporary glass, steel and wood within its centuries-old stone structure. We spent a day driving around the sights of the local Pyrenees, including to the beautiful Spanish Parque Nacional de Ordesa y Monte Perdido, up to the French border at the Col du Pourtalet (one of the classic mountain passes of the Tour de France), and back to Aínsa through a far more narrow, windy, and adventurous road than we had planned.  After two lovely nights in Aínsa, we drove from Aínsa to Barcelona thru the little country of Andorra.

Click on the picture of the view through our bedroom window in Aínsa for a slideshow including the old city, throwing snowballs atop the Col du Pourtalet, driving through the Pyrenees including on some small roads shared with lots of cows, our GPS as we crossed the prime meridian, and a detail I particularly liked at our hotel.