Leaving La Rioja and onto Marquis de Riscal

We then finished the winery tour with another delicious multi-course, catered lunch complete with red wine from our hosts.  Before leaving the winery tour, we had the opportunity to sample the purplish blue grapes directly from the vines.  Delicious!  We were told that some of the grapes also ended up as ordinary table grapes.

Next our guide took us to visit an exclusive, avant-garde hotel, with only 43 rooms, in the nearby town of Elciego.  It was designed by Frank Gehry, the same architect that designed the Guggenheim Musuem in Bilbao.

As we walked up to the hotel, we couldn’t help but noticed the signature style of Gehry in the flowing, curving metal structures that had both a whimsical, yet magical quality glowing in the sunlight and nestled in a natural, hilly setting complete with vineyards growing right next to the patio areas of the hotel.

A view of the traditional church in the adjacent, rural downtown provides an interesting juxtaposition of a style of architecture that is centuries old with one of the newest styles.

We then returned to San Sebastian and the film festival, complete with celebrity movie stars, producers and directors arriving at the Hotel Maria Cristina, the classiest hotel in town.  The movie star signing autographs in the picture was obviously well known by the screaming, adoring crowd, but we had no idea who he was.  The only celebrity we recognize was Glenn Close who was presented with a life-time achievement award earlier in the festival.