San Sebastian

A few years ago I went to visit a cousin in Boston. To prepare for my arrival she asked my mom for ideas. My mom offered the suggestion that I am usually very happy near bodies of water. Until I heard my mom's observation I was unaware of this fact, I guess I had just never noticed how true it was. I spent the first 12 or so years of my life living on the Oregon Coast (one of the most ruggedly beautiful places on Earth). When I went to college in DC I quickly found that the Jefferson Memorial is my favorite, probably partly because of its location on the tidal basin. Now in Madrid, one of my favorite places to have a coffee is at a cafe next to the fake pond in the middle of Retiro park.

This is important information because I think it explains why I loved San Sebastian so much. To take advantage of my remaining time here I attempted to organize a trip to San Sebastian. Audrey and Eimear also wanted to go, so for the weekend of May 15th we went north. San Sebastian is a small-ish town in the north of Spain located on the Bay of Biscay. Our guide book listed a few sights to see, like the Cathedral, but we spent most of our time just wandering the old narrow streets, walking next to the beach and eating Pinxtos. The touristiness of our trip was minimal.


After taking the 6 hour bus ride from Madrid we took a little nap before exploring the city. Our first stop was the boardwalk, just 3 blocks from the hostel. It was beautiful. There were sandy beaches, clear blue water and tree-covered hills. True to my mom's assessment, as soon as I laid eyes on the bay I was in a happy place. I loved it. We continued on walking the city and found the Cathedral and lots of shopping. Then we paused long enough to make a plan, which was to wander some more then eat Pinxtos.

Pinxtos are little servings of food, typically on bread, that you eat with a drink. In San Sebastian the Pinxto experience goes as follows: go to bar, order a drink, pick up a pinxto from the plates laid out on the bar, eat, repeat until you move to the next place. In our adventure we ended up trying four different places, all with yummy food. I couldn't tell you exactly what I was eating most of the time, but it was good.

Saturday was our only full day in San Sebastian, but we were not worried about sight-seeing. We got a late start to the day and started off with lunch of Pallea at a place recommended by our hostel owner. The hostel owner knows what he is talking about. The Pallea was fabulous. We then went shopping/wandering. Then it started to rain, so we hid out in the hostel, watching a movie until it was time for a repeat of our Pinxto adventure. Just as delicious as the first night.

On Sunday we had a few hours before the bus, so we decided to try and walk up to a very large Jesus statue that offered good views of the city. After fueling up with ice-cream we found that the hike up there was a little more than we wanted to do, so we walked around a cape and took in some fantastic views of the water. On our walk back to the hostel to collect our things we took off our shoes and walked with the waves brushing over our feet. Finally, it was time to make some sandwiches and get back on the bus for a 6 hour ride back.


San Sebastian was amazing. I'm not at all upset by the fact that we didn't see any "sights" nor did we really "do" anything. I think we successfully completed my goal of setting aside my American idea of conquering locations and really did "aprovechar" my time away from Madrid and next to the sea.