ok. so mean mamma has now been lost in.......france, hondarribia, st. sebastian, and bilbao, all in the same day.......the parador was up inside a walled area of hondaribbia....up cobbled narrow one-way street....which we inched up in the pouring rain.....parador was lovely..we were so tired that rachel fell asleep, and we basically chilled out after eating our stash of cheese, bread, tinned sardines and chocolate...as well as minibar nuts, olives, and assorted beverages.....the walls of our room were 5 feet thick, as it was a fortress..we have a window overlooking bay of biscay....nice sleep to wake up to a fabulous breakfast buffet with spanish potato omelets, 2 kinds of sausages, pastires, fruits, etc. in a lovely breakfast room.....drove to st. sebastian to see opera house (kursaal) where a marathon of sorts was taking place in driving rainstorm....the kenyans were winning....rachel forgot her coat at hotel so we drove back for it...scw asked at desk for her coat in perfect spanish, after looking up his verb in 301 spanish verbs......then on to guernika-lumo to see ancient basque oak tree...then to bilbao. we saw signs for hotel, then drove and then walked forever trying to find it....one-way streets are a maze........this morning (7th?) we went to guggenheim by street car and then by metro. it is impressive, made of marble and titanium....the traveling exhibits featured rubens and kandinsky....lovely lunch in restaurant...sweet red pepper soup with prawns then salmon then chocolate mousse........with a nice white wine from la mancha.....had to move car from underground lot to the one at hotel...kind if scratched up side bumper trying to park in narrow side street.....oh my.......we are hoping tommorrow at madrid airport it is dark and they won´t notice.......