A tour guide told me that 70% of people in San Sebastián are physically active. If this was available to you all over town for several hours at lunch and dinner each day, wouldn’t you have to be active too?
I arrived in San Sebastián late Thursday, from my first Spanish train that did not have food, so I ate vending machine trail mix between breakfast and 9:30pm (hot tip: trail mix here includes corn nuts, and they are so good!). I foolishly ate below my hostel that night, just some gazpacho and a little fish dish.
The next day I did a mega-tour with one local company, Urban Adventures: a hike, followed by a pintxo tour, and a bike tour. It was exhausting, but I saw a ton of the city and ate many pinxtos.
A word about pinxtos. They are small plates of food, some prepared in advance and on display and some by order in the kitchen. These are not the same as tapas in the south, but they have evolved to be similar. I would say it’s easy to assemble a meal of pinxtos but not as easy to get a full meal of tapas.
San Sebastián was also a popular vacation spot for 19th century Spanish royalty, and it’s easy to see why. There’s the shell-shaped bay that used to be the fishing port, with lush, green hills at each edge of the shell and behind the city.
The bay itself is calm no matter what is happening in the adjacent ocean. And just look at the color of that water. Then there’s the history of seafaring, shipbuilding, privateering/pirating which brought a lot of money here.
It’s just so beautiful- the landscape, the buildings, have I mentioned the food? So San Sebastián doesn’t try hard- it doesn’t have to. The tourist office is closed on Saturdays, and only some signs are even in Spanish. People are friendly, but the city isn’t tripping over itself to help you find things. My tours and google maps were a huge help here.
The climate is temperate rain forest- like Portland or Seattle. In two days I spent there, the sun only came out for one afternoon. People in the city exploded to the outdoors. Every outside table at every bar and cafe is taken, people stand outside popular pintxos spots, and gelato vendors are overrun. I took the same picture over and over again from different spots until the sun went down.
On Sunday morning, my train didn’t leave until 11am, and I woke up before 8. I walked along the beach again, to a sculpture at the end of the walkway that is meant to represent the past, present and future. You can stand beside and touch the sculpture for the present, but the past is on rocks off to the right, and the future is out of reach in front of you. Present doesn’t look like something I should touch, so I take a picture looking through it and release a single, full-breath “Ooooooommmmmmmm.”
Sara's 40th Birthday 