We had wanted to go to Spain for some time now, Tina had never been and I had only been on my brothers stag tour so the only Spanish culture I had seen was the Real Madrid museum.
We had seen San Sebastian featured on some TV travel shows, and it looked like the sort of place for us, nice old buildings and loads of tapas bars. What's more it is only just across the French border, so last month we did a bit more research, found a nice hotel in the centre of town and off we went.
It only took us about 4 hours to get to the Spanish Border, and another half hour to get to San Sebastian, or Donostia as it is called locally. Donostia is the basque name for the city, and the basque influence extends both sides of the border. The French region approaching the border is known as PaysBasque and the even the road signs are in the basque language as well as French.
The first impression as you cross the border is that it is very built up along the coast, as there is very little space between where the Pyrenees end and the sea begins, so building land is at a premium. Parking is very limited, and expensive in the city centre, so we left our car up by the University and caught a bus into town. It was pouring down with rain, so we couldn't see much of the city.
Our hotel was on the edge of the town centre, only ten minutes walk from the old town, and the owners were very friendly and helpful, giving us loads of information on sights to see and some of their favourite pintxos bars.
Pintxos are the basque version of tapas, and San Sebastian/Donostia is famous for some of the best bars in the world. It has more Michelin stars per head of population than any other city in the world, where you can eat for €140 a head, or like us, you can have a pintxos suprise ( glass of Cava and fresh crab and prawn on a slice of baguette) for €2.50.
We were a bit unsure of how everything worked, so we just watched in the first bar, before we got brave enough to copy the locals.
In every bar the bar tops are covered in plates of delicious looking morsels, anchovies, breaded sardines, hams, black pudding ..... the list is endless. Then there are other dishes listed on a blackboard, that are cooked to order. You just point at what you want and then when you finish, just tell the barman what you have eaten.
There are well over 100 pintxos bars in Donostia, if you went to 10 different bars each night you still wouldn't run out of bars in two weeks! The website below has a list of most of them, and even pictures and recipes of some of the best dishes(best to use the Spanish pages as not all of the English pages work).
The next day we woke up to bright sunshine, and set of to explore the town. There are two large hills that frame the bay, one of which has a funicular railway that goes to the top of it. Not on Wednesdays in November though. We had to climb it ourselves, hard work , but worth it for the views.
View from the top
Wind Combs sculptures
One of the three beaches in Donostia San Sebastian
One of the three beaches in Donostia San Sebastian
Theatre
Old town
Conference Centre
The old town lies at the heart of San Sebastian, with bays on either side. Although it is only a few miles from France, the building stiles are very different, as you can probably see in the pictures. It is nice and compact, so you can see walk to most of the sights quite easily, even better if the funicular is working so you don't knacker yourself out in the morning. We never sat down for a meal the whole time we were there, preferring to snack out on pintxos instead, and we even managed the odd word of Spanish, although we did get some replies in French, as we must have slipped the odd French word in instead.
The old town lies at the heart of San Sebastian, with bays on either side. Although it is only a few miles from France, the building stiles are very different, as you can probably see in the pictures. It is nice and compact, so you can see walk to most of the sights quite easily, even better if the funicular is working so you don't knacker yourself out in the morning. We never sat down for a meal the whole time we were there, preferring to snack out on pintxos instead, and we even managed the odd word of Spanish, although we did get some replies in French, as we must have slipped the odd French word in instead.
We had a fantastic time, and we will definitely go back in the future.
