San Sebastian, Spain - December 2008 - January 2009

Logrono had been grey and chilly (about 45 degrees) so we were hoping for nice weather in San Sebastian. Our bus ride was scenic and uneventful, but as we came into more hilly country, the grey skies turned to blue, the sun came out, and we got excited for our stay in this beach resort town.

Turns out “town” is a bit of an understatement. While not a huge city, San Sebastian was bigger than we anticipated. Rather than try to find our hotel, Pension Bellas Artes, we hailed a cab and gave him the address.

We actually could have walked as it was only a few blocks, but the fare was cheap so we didn’t mind. We checked in and were immediately overwhelmed by the hospitality shown to us at the B&B. The woman at reception, Olatz, pulled out a map and told us where to go, what to see, where to eat, the best routes to take for the best views, and offered to make us any reservations or arrangements we needed. We dropped our stuff in our room and decided to set out to explore right away.

We walked down to the beach (me in heels!), took a ton of pictures, explored the old town and then decided to indulge Dan’s craving for hamburgers and beer at a busy café. The burgers looked good and were cheap (and decently tasty) but as I bit into mine I felt something hard crunch against my tooth. At first I thought it was my tooth. I spat it out and it was hard and white. Dan told me it was probably a chunk of salt that hadn’t been ground; he later confessed that he thought it might be bone. Sick, but hey, I’m still alive.

We wandered around town, browsed the high-end shops, stopped into another Zara, and then retreated for a nap. We got up around 6 – too early for dinner – and Dan picked up a baguette and some cheese and jamon at the local store for us to enjoy with a bottle or the wine we bought in Rioja as a little appetizer.

We met Leire, the Pension owner, and her mother who were just so excited to have us, so sweet and enthusiastic. We adored them and they really made the place so great to stay at. Around 8 we headed down to old town, which supposedly has the highest concentration of bars per square foot in all of Europe, for some tapas hopping on 31 de Agosto street.

Every tapas bar is different. In Logrono, we pointed to what we wanted per-piece from a case on display, or ordered small portions from a menu. At the first place we went to in San Sebastian, the items were all on display, but not in a case. We just asked for a plate, picked what we wanted and then told the bartender what we had when it was time to pay. They are really big on the honor system there.

We had a piece of salami with cheese, a deep fried shrimp, a deep fried cheese ball, a jamón y queso pastry, and a chorizo and cheese eggroll at a few different places. We also tried Basque sidra (cider) which was quite good but more vinegary than expected. I loved it and had plenty more in the next few days.

Then we headed to La Cuchara de San Telmo, a place recommended to us by Leire, where you order off a chalkboard and everything is prepared fresh. We had excellent risotto and an amazing, delicious, huge piece of foie gras that was only 3 euro (about $5)! We vowed to come back the next night for New Year’s Eve. We stopped on the way home for a beer, took some pictures, and then crawled into bed around midnight.

The next day we walked back down to the beach and planned to take a funicular (a kind of train) up the mountain for the incredible (or so we were told) views, but it was closed for the holiday. We soon learned we would run into that problem a lot. We spent some more time near the beach, marveling at the fact that alongside people swimming (it was about 60 degrees and sunny) were people in fur coats!

We shopped some more, stopped for pizza (another craving) and some amazing sangria and then retired to the room to plan out our New Year’s Eve night.

We were disappointed to learn that many of the tapas places (including our beloved San Telmo) would be closed that night. We didn’t want to spend a ton on a fancy dinner, so we decided to take our chances, wander around and see what was open. We had some baguette and wine in the room for a snack, and then went to leave at 9pm. When we walked out of our room, we found that Leire had arranged a little New Year’s Eve party for all the guests, complete with champagne and party favors. We drank, chatted with the other guests from Spain, France, England, and Japan, and learned how to say Happy New Year and toast in 4 languages (those, plus Catalan, which is different from Spanish and spoken in Barcelona).

We tapas hopped, drank tons of champagne, talked with people on the street and had a great time. We met more Spanish people, lots of French people (the border was only 30 minutes away) and some Italians. We counted down to New Year and then partied in the street until nearly 3am, which actually made us the early birds, as the party went on until about 5am!

New Year’s Day we woke by 12 for check out. We had to kill time until our 11:30 pm overnight bus to Barcelona so we debated about taking a different bus up to Bilbao (about 2 hours away) to wander around, but ultimately decided against it. We had some tapas and cider for lunch, strolled the beach, saw a movie in Spanish and then had dinner before going back to our Pension to check out and make our way to the bus station.

Looking back, it didn’t seem like we really did a whole lot in San Sebastian. Just as in Cinque Terre, Italy, the place where we did the least amount of sight-seeing ended up being our favorite.

DAN: San Sebastian is probably one of my favorite places. It’s part city and part smallish town. I love the food and the beach and the people and just most everything about it…I have nothing negative to say about the place and even before we left for Barcelona I was already planning our trip back.