San Sebastián, ES

Sun, sand and sangria pretty much sums up our stay in San Sebastián. We’ve had a very nice introduction to Spain, and very much enjoyed some of the well-known stereotypes, like tapas (called pintxos, said like “pinchoes”) and siesta.

We left blue-skied Bordeaux and arrived an overcast grey sky. Christina was disheartened, but there was no need to worry. The skies cleared right about the time we were hitting the Tourist Info Center to drum up a place to sleep.

Having not booked anything before our arrival, we were curious to see what we’d get. In London we had been hit with 180£ luxury, and here we got a very nice room at a pensión for 70€, which is still somewhat above budget, but definately not a worst-case scenario. They only had availability for us for a couple of nights, so after exploring town with the remainder of our first day, we made it a priority to find aanother room. Our first hour in San Sebastián was enough to convince us to stay for an entire week – the first impression was that good.

Old Town here is about half a dozen square blocks of pedestrian street lined with specialty shops and pintxo bars, many with pensión housing on the upper floors (all of which were booked solid, since it’s high season).

This part of town pretty much never sleeps – or, rather, it sleeps significantly less than we do – since it seems to be always teeming with people spilling out of the packed bars and into the streets holding drinks in one hand and plates of pintxos in another.

The whole idea of the pintxo bar runs on an honor system. Ask the bartender for either a small plate or large plate, depending on how long you plan to stay, then fill the plate with as many pintxos as you like from the platters which cover the counter. When your plate is full, or when you’ve taken what looks tasty, show him your plate and he’ll add it up for you and get you a drink. Spanish tradition holds that the proper approach is to have just one or two pintxos and a small beer or sangria at one bar, then go to the next and do it again. Each one has their speciality, and while there are a lot of items that you see in each place, no two have exactly the same selection of goodies. There will be a different selection available in the morning, and the affair will run from around 10AM (or maybe earlier… we wouldn’t know) until past midnight.

There are three beaches, and it’s a bit of a toss-up as to which one is the best. Our first room was closest to Playa de Zurriola, where the surf action is good and the crowd is young and energetic.

The second room was closer to Playa de la Concha, which is sheltered in a bay and therefore has fewer waves. This beach is used to moor quite a number of boats, and is much larger than the other. It sports a broad demographic, and a relatively high number of sunbathers who value the consistency of their tan over their modesty (with, as usual, mixed results). We didn’t really spend any time at the third beach, since it was a fair walk from our part of town, but it also looked very nice. We had one “beach day” during which we rented one of the chair/shade-tent units on Playa de la Concha and spent the afternoon getting a little color, and catching up on some reading.

Our preferred spot for lunch has a terrace favorably positioned either to look out over the beach, or next to the busy boardwalk. A nice feature of the local culture is that no urgency to leave your seat applies, once you get set up in a good spot. One drink can be nursed for the whole afternoon while you sit with novel or journal and enjoy the atmosphere. I tried my hand at surfing the waves on Playa de Zurriola, and found myself to be distressingly out of shape. I caught a few monsters, and got tossed a bunch of times too, but ran out of gas sooner than I would have liked. I’ve vowed to take up swimming upon our return.

One difficulty, not unexpected, but maybe more serious than anticipated, was the language barrier. We don’t speak Spanish… ok. But we don’t speak French either, and yet had a much easier time communicating in both Tours and Bordeaux. I got a sporty new haircut on our second day, and the language deficit was definately in play. We entered the barbershop and I asked a couple of questions: “How much for a trim?”, and “How late are you open?”. The barber was working on a client, and looked blankly back at us. He didn’t speak English. His client spoke English though, and relayed our questions, which the barber answered in Spanish, and the client replied to us in English. It was 12€, and he was open until 8PM. Then during our last morning in town, after selecting some breakfast pintxos I asked for orange juice. Or so I though. Apparently “bebida naranja” (which literally translates as “orange drink”, and was the best I could do) produces two glasses of rosé wine…

The Old Town district is boxed in by shopping streets on its East side, and Alameda del Boulevard to the South, with its cafes, gelaterias and patisseries. To the West is the waterfront, which sports a pier and docks, as well as a number of classic seafood places. Christina really wanted to try one of these, but we ended up getting the seafood fix at a less expensive venue.

To the North side is Monte Urgull Parque, which is hill largely free of development except for the old construction of the Urgull Fort at its peak and the paved walking paths and stairs by which this summit is reached.

During our last day we took the walk to the top, where we saw the fort (somewhat unexpectedly, because all you can see from the street level is the statue of Christ rising above the treetops) and took photos of town. The interior of the fort is made over as a museum – pleasantly priced at 0€ – which had displays from the venerable history of the current fort.

This iteration of fortification dates back to the 17th century, but apparently there has been a fort in the same spot all the way back to the 12th century. There were cool maps and models of the ancient incarnations of the fort and the town, and a some-kinda-hundreds years old cannon, originally cast for this fort in some famous foundry in Germany.

Our last full day marks the beginning of a week long festival called Semana Grande, during which the city will be host to a national fireworks competition each evening, and street performance and sporting events during the day. There are probably half a dozen stages set up, one at each beach and square and large public space in town.

We only got to see one of the fireworks shows, but it was at least as good as anything I’ve seen during GlobalFest at home. The whole town turned out for the event, and during the display people were singing and drinking and thoroughly enjoying themselves.

San Sebastián has been a fantastic break from our past couple weeks of town-to-town travel. It’s a beautiful town with lots to see and do, and having not have heard of it previously, we feel like chancing upon it was an inspired move. We’ve recharged enough to be excited for Lisbon, which according to our reading, it promises to be another cool town.