Rumbo al Norte – Day 10

Today, we took it easy. We slept until later than usual, then I worked on this blog (because I hadn’t had time or a good enough internet connection to finish yesterday’s very full day!) and then we left the hotel and visited San Sebastian.

Which is very different than Bilbao.

Whereas Bilbao is running and efficient; calm but functional; new and traditional at the same time; San Sebastian is none of those.

In 1813, the city was attacked by British and Portuguese soldiers. Once conquered, the soldiers started celebrating; the situation spun rapidly out of control and by the time they had sobered up, most of San Sebastian had been killed, raped, drunk, destroyed and burnt to the ground.

So the old town is barely distinguishable from the rest and very very small. There are practically no historical buildings.

What it does have is a very large city beach; very popular as we noticed today. There were people everywhere and, although we realise that it’s saturday, it felt strongly like a holiday.

Everyone was bustling, but lazily. Strolling and running and calling and sunbathing and playing and sporting (i.e. doing sports) but with a relaxed, no worries kind of feel.

Another thing that we noticed was how everything was very bohemian, end of the (last) century. I could imagine old cars honking loudly, feathers and frills, laughing and new, controversial music making its way into the pintxos bars and side streets of San Sebastian.

The cathedral was impossible to photograph!

We bought cooked seafood – sea snails and tiny shrimps – from a shop by the dock and spent about an hour eating the freshest seafood I’ve eaten in a while.

I told you that today was our lazy day!

And then we spent the rest of the afternoon wandering aimlessly and stopping to have some pintxos in random bars. Without even checking Tripadvisor first.

And, since we’re being lazy, here’s a whole series of photos for you of our day today. And I won’t even write anything to describe them… you can imagine what I’d say. If you have any questions, however, do comment 🙂

When the shadows began to stretch, we walked back to the car.

And that was it. We left San Sebastian after a lazy lazy day of relaxed sightseeing and were very happy about it. San Sebastian is not a place I’d like to live in but it is somewhere I’d like to come back to for a weekend getaway. If you live in Madrid, weekend escapes are what keeps you going sometimes.

Wait for us Donostia… We’ll be back!