San Sebastian

JC and Meghan (aren't they cute!?!?!) only saw San Sebastian when it was grey and requested some pretty pix. So here. Photos here

San Sebastian


We planned ahead. After our experience in Bordeaux, we figured that we’d reserve a room when going into a heavily touristed city. So, we used our handy-dandy “wee-fee” connection and emailed with a couple of hotels in San Sebastian, enquiring as to the availability of smoke-free rooms. One, Hotel Parma, responded that all their rooms were smoke-free, we booked immediately for 2 nights.

We had a lovely drive from Bayonne to San Sebastian. We drove through Biarritz, gawking at the beautiful promenade. We had lunch in San Jean de Luz, a place to definitely come back to: we picked up food from a charcuterie and sat in the town square, eating and enjoying a performance of basque music. After the live performance, they put on a bit of recorded music, to which a large group of people began to circle-dance. It was great. And like all folk circle-dances, after a while, it was time to move on.

We followed the signs for San Sebastian-Donostia and eventually the road signs changed subtly, and we realized: We’re in Spain! The lack of noticeable borders is quite striking when you think about it. Less than 70 years since the bloodiest conflict in history rocked the continent, you can now drive unfettered from Portugal to Bulgaria without seeing a single border agent. Note to drivers: the signage in Spain is slightly worse than the signage in France…

We have smooth driving into San Sebastian and then we start slowing down, and we notice a helicopter hovering over the center of the city, and we start seeing police everywhere… we find the hotel and then search for a parking spot… and search… and search. We finally find one.

We decide to go for a walk before checking in. We walk along the sea wall through throngs of people of all ages wearing sets of matching tee-shirts eating sandwiches and drinking cider-ish looking alcohol from green bottles. We have no idea what’s going on.

We check into the hotel and ask - it was the last day of the annual sea-rowing competition. Every town and village in Basque-land sends in their best and rowiest to compete against the rest of basque-land. Every town and village follows in cars and buses (wearing matching tee-shirts to show support) in order to root for their respective team. It is madness.

The cops were around since there were so many people, yet despite the mass crowds and drunkeness, the only incivility we noticed was peeing in the streets (and we noticed lots of that) and graffiti crossing out the name of any Spanish central government ministry on any sign and proclaiming: Independenzia!

We tried pintxos for the first time that first night. Pintxos is the Euskarian (basque-language) word for tapas. Almost every bar, and there are a lot of bars, serves pintxos in addition to alcohol. Most often, the entire bar surface is covered in platters of food. Patrons ask for a plate along with their drinks, and then forage for what they want, asking for assistance only for the items that need to be cooked. At the end, you tell the staff what you had and they hand you a bill. It is really a wonderful system.


The system may be great, but if the system were just providing substandard nuggets of food, it wouldn’t be worth it. Instead, these bars dole out amazing morsels of deliciousness. The following is an incredibly small list of pintxos: patatas bravas, mussels in a variety of sauces, prawns attached to any number of things, pimiento peppers with olives on a toothpick with an anchovy, an anchovy wrapped around a shrimp on top of a dollop of egg salad on a small slice of bread, a fried croquette of cheese and pork and ham and béchamel, little octopuses grasping onto shrimps dressed in pimiento strands, little tarts filled with eggplant, slices of eggplant on top of minced sea food on a cracker, a small lobe of liver lightly cooked on a piece of bread, a small ham and cheese sandwich, a different kind of ham and cheese sandwich, a sandwich with just ham, etc, etc, etc. It is wonderful, and amazing, somewhat difficult for me to make sure that no cephalopod enters my stomach, but I don‘t let that stop me, and not at all expensive. Oh, and they serve them for lunch as well as dinner.

The tradition is to go from bar to bar, have a drink and a pintxo and then go to the next bar. This is a great way to spend an evening. And a very easy way to get drunk on Txakoli, the basque white wine that is served in such a way as to increase its bubbliness -- it’s like a really dry, crisp, bubbly champagne, but dirt cheap.


On Monday, after a wonderful promenade along the beach, a search for an English language bookstore that ended up with us finding a Boston transplant running a children’s clothing store who gave us her last four English books, lunch on the beach and an afternoon lolling in the sun and boogie-boarding, we decided to stay an extra night. The hotel obliged us (thank you, Hotel Parma!)

Monday night was more pintxos. After we were sated we took a seat on the steps in front of one of the churches in old town, overlooking a street full of bars and happy pintxo eaters, and relaxed. From one of the buildings we could hear a choral group practicing, they were great. We also got to listen to the church bells chime the quarters of the hour. This is normally not worth mentioning, but I think these bells were last tuned in mid 19th century. They started off as usual: tum dom tum dom, but then, twee dwiyyie dyoooo tchooo. And that was only the beginning, the 45 minute mark and the full hour mark were wonderful cacophonous tollings.

Tuesday: walk, lunch pintxos, beach, nap, pinxtos, sleep.
Wednesday: bye bye San Sebastian, our bodies can’t take living like rockstars. Too much wine, too much sun, not enough fiber.

Note regarding beaches in San Sebastian: I know Kate mentioned earlier that none of the exposed bodies are lithe, but I need to correct her. There is an incredible variety of bodies on the beaches of San Sebastian. There are large bodies, young bodies, lithe bodies, old bodies, fully clothed, partially clothed, not clothed at all. The latter category usually applied to leathery skinned bronze older men who would stride forth from the water in all the glory and confidence with which god endowed them. They walked like they owned the beach -- no modicum of modesty, no shame, no thought given to the fact that they were the only completely unclothed folk around. The same can be said about one younger woman we saw on Tuesday as well. She got up from her sun bathing spot, walked through hundreds of folk to the showers, showered, and then walked back and laid down again, with one of the most magisterial airs I’ve ever seen. She was neither old nor leathery, and both Kate and I watched with our chins actually hanging down. Many other folk watched too, we weren’t that out of place. All in all, one of the greatest parts of the beach is the incredible lack of self-consciousness about people’s bodies: when folks of all shapes and sizes are letting it hang out and relaxing, it gives you the freedom to sit there and relax as well. Especially when you’re full of pintxos and can’t move.