"Desde Santurce a Bilbao"

For those of you that have been singing "Desde Santurce a Bilbao" and never been in Santurce, here you have a few pictures of one of my favorite places on earth.

As I told you in my last post I was raised in Santurce. As I also said, many of my childhood memories were related to food and now you will understand why.

After school, my mother and grandmother used to take me the fishing port before going home to my homework. The colorful fishing ships, the nets, the fish and mostly the "sardineras", made the port this fascinating place to me.

The "Sardineras" were a group of hard working-women that sold fish in the port. Their typical outfit and the particular way of selling fresh fish became an icon of Santurce. Loved and cherished, the Sardineras slowly desappeared from the port. The port was never the same ...

Walking through the port, I always stopped in front of the restaurant "Mandanga". They had a grill outside that was always busy with all kind of fresh fish. The heat of the grill, the color of the coal, the beautiful fish and the smell of all of combined, is one of my most vivid memories.

I still find inexplicable joy in having grill sardines in a piece of country bread while drinking a good wine .... it feels like going back to Santurce.