The trip to San Sebastian was probably one of the most enjoyable holidays I’ve had and its probably down to the fact that we were so relaxed about everything. Sure, we planned our fine dining experiences in advance, but other than that we kind of chilled and let things flow as they flowed! The fact that the weather was superb didn’t hurt either.
| Weather | Fried Egg Sunbaking weather! |
| Tips | Bilbao and Biarritz are just two decent day trips that can be taken from San Sebastian but you would be advised to check bus times in advance to ensure they fit into your other plans. |
| Bring: An empty stomach. Good found abounds in San Sebastian and its not only fine dining options that await. | |
| Stay: Pension Edorta. Central location right near the beaches and fantastic customer service including providing us with beach towels, sunscreen and body wash. | |
| This is a tip more for Stansted Airport than San Sebastian: Bring your own plastic bag or you’ll end up paying £1 for 4 … we couldn’t believe they weren’t free anymore! Really hope they stop this lunatic limit on liquids soon …. |
The Experience
Bilbao
We flew in to Bilbao from Stansted before making our just over one-hour journey to San Sebastian by bus. Bilbao. There are a few “things to do” in Bilbao but undoubtedly the number one reason for visiting Bilbao is to visit the Guggenheim Museum.
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Now I don’t normally like going into museums but the modern and, more specifically, contemporary art is the stuff I will make an exception for. Entry into the Guggenheim is 13 euro and includes a free audio tour (which was pretty good when you could find the right number to press!) In addition, there are regular free guided tours but these are not always in English so you have to time your visit well. The free coat check helps which luggage so that was handy for us. The Guggenheim collection is found inside and outside the building however no photos are allowed inside. The building itself is an intriguing piece of art and the front entrance is marked by a giant flowering bush dog. Very cute.
We didn’t visit every exhibition inside the Guggenhiem (such as the Chaos and Classicism special exhibition) but saw as much as we could. The Luminous Interval: D.Daskalopoulos Collection is one of the most significant private collections of contemporary art and we were very privileged to be seeing it. There was some really interesting pieces such as this red monstrosity which part of a video/car/assorted object installation by John Bock. The video was this weird story about these two German assassins sent to LA on a mission and the physically installation included props from the movie. The collection also included pieces from Damien Hirst (his evacuated victrine) and my favourtie Paul McCarthy’s “Tomato Head (Burgundy).” The collection also included Thomas Hirschhorn’s catacomb “Cavemanman” which is basically this cardboard cave taped over with packaging tape strewn with empty cans, porn magazines, philosophical books etc. Actually, I think I’ve seen it before – perhaps at the New York Guggenheim? There were so many interesting pieces in the collection that I could go on an on! I loved it.
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The permanent collection was pretty cool too. Richard Serra’s The Matter of Time took up an entire room and consisted of giant spirals of differing twists and turns which you are asked to move around or in. Jenny Holzer’s LED of Truisms is another installation I’ve seen at another museum, or at least something similar, but the sentiments would never grow old, nor the installation less fascinating.
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Outside of the Guggenheim are Jeff Koons’ Tulips which provide endless hours of photographing fun in the as does Louise Bourgeois’ iconic spider sculpture last seen by me at the Tate Modern.
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Sights of San Sebastian
We had effectively three full days to make the most of San Sebastian although you had to take away a couple of evenings for our fine dining which was just about the right time to fit in the beach, long walks, and a spa afternoon. We really taxed ourselves on this trip didn’t we 😉
The Beaches
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The beaches of San Sebastian are undoubtedly some of the most beautiful I’ve seen and La Concha Bay in particular with the two beaches, Concha Beach and Ondarreta Beach, is a golden treasure which is not only good for laying on and sunbathing, but also great for long walks at sunrise, sunset … or any time of the day!
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Zurriola Beach is great for checking out the surfers … I thought it was also supposed to be a nudist beach but we didn’t see any when we were there – though to be fair in Spain the ladies are mostly topless anyway … so that’s halfway there!
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One of the great things about the San Sebastian beaches was that all have fresh water showers (fee for the warm showers) and free water fountains and toilets so that made it quite easy to stay beachside for a large part of the day. The sun was so good and we were so starving for Vitamin D that we spent at least part of everyday on the beach sunbathing. Great weather for getting the Fried Eggs out!
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We found that the beach was a popular place for kids to try their acrobatics. It was very cool.
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Cute Old Town
The Old Town is very cute and sweet and extremely explorable by foot.
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Sights
Two much explores are Mount Igueldo which is an old, but still running, amusement park. It can be reached by taking a very quick furnicular a short stroll from Ondaretta Beach. Mount Igueldo gives amazing views back towards the centre of San Sebastian.
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At the top you should hop on to the log ride. Childish and short but fun.
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Speaking of childish we found this playground on one of our walks. I couldn’t help going and playing around on the equipment …
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On the other side of La Concha Bay is Mount Urgull which has the La Mota Castle (cannons) and the Sacred Heart monument. This view point is closer to the old town than Mount Igueldo but requires a bit more hiking to get to the top. Its not hard but its not as easy as getting on the furnicular to take you to the top. Again, outstanding views at the top.
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La Perla Thalassotherapy
We set aside our last afternoon in San Sebastian to relax with a massage and a couple of hours at a Thalassotherapy spa. The spa is set right on La Concha Bay, so a perfect setting for relaxation!
Thalassotherapy is a form of therapy that uses seawater and at La Perla they had lots of different circuits which involved the use of pools of seawater. In one pool it was a series of different spa jets focusing in different parts of your body like your neck, knees, groin, etc. which you moved around, and in another it was like a waterfall in the Hydrotherapy pool. In yet another pool there was the activity pool (with underwater bikes, rowing machines, weight machine, ski machine, stepper, climber!)
Other points of interest was the giant panoramic Jacuzzi, a sensation labyrinth (you walk through a curved corridor with jets of hot water (red light), cold water (blue light), sprinkles (black light), cold water (red light), and hot water (blue light); Water beds; Sea vapour bath; Ice fountain and a dry sauna.
It was absolutely bliss.
Food
San Sebastian is not only about fine dining. It is also synonymous with these little bite-size pieces called Pintxos. I still haven’t quite mastered how to pronounce it but I certainly didn’t have any problems getting it down. There is a street in San Sebastian which is packed full of all the really good pintxos bars and boy do they get full! We ended up at Fuego Negro which was probably not a typical Pintxos bar. We were drawn in because it looked so cool but it ended up being an almost fine dining kind of pinxtos. Ha!
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We indulged in six dishes and don’t they all look stunning: Mushrooms, ham and “egg”; Spheres of shredded spider crab, avocado purée and a scoop of sweet liquorice ice cream (to be combined together in small mouthfuls); Garlic risotto with herbs and shades (incredible); Cheese with tongue and polenta; Wild chicken, corn, leaves and skin; and Lumagorri pate, soupfoam and corn.
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Our food, though, wasn’t always fine dining. We loved our local “greasy” spoon which had this signature of cutting a hole out of the top of their toast or burger to let the egg come through. Mystified how they always knew were the yolk was!
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Also had desserts of churros and a fondant chocolate which I was drawn to because of the curried coconut ice-cream. Different!
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We didn’t actually get around to many of the other sights that San Sebastian has including supposedly Europe’s most modern Aquarium, the Chillida-Leku Centre which was temporarily closed and the Sagardoetxea-Cider Museum. There were also quite a number of interesting sounding tours that we didn’t get to take such as this Running Tour and all these food courses that you can take from learning to make pintxo or “low temperature” cooking. Things to look forward to on my next visit!