San Sebastian...my first time in Spain

Laura, Mick & Brent (who were good fun to travel with) headed to Basque country for the first May long weekend which was great. I had no idea what to expect of the place but I did enjoy it. San Seb is clean, modern (except for the old town but that's lovely), full of yummy tapas bars and has a generally low key kind of vibe.



Travel buddies on arrival

We hired a car and drove from Santander to San Sebastian on Friday afternoon and then found our accomm (La Perla - a good pension that was clean & central). On our first night we got straight into the local culture and did a tapas bar crawl stopping in at one bar for some nibbles and glasses of beer / wine before heading off to the next one.

We did a few of these 'crawls' over the weekend care of www.todopinxtos.com which were terrific. FYI pinxtos is tapas in Basque territory.

On Saturday we wandered around the city and along the beaches. Sadly the weather wasn't as warm as I had hoped (or packed) for but that at least meant we had the place almost to ourselves! We had an enormous lunch and then sat in a square playing cards and drinking sidra (local cider) while the Barcelona football fans around us warmed up for the evening ahead (think chants and singing, fire crackers and general merriment!). After a quick siesta the night began. More tapas and more wine inevitabley lead to a big & fun evening out on the town and with some new found friends as well.



Street scenes of La Concha (the beach), the old town and centro (the new bit)...









The fans in a square that was once a bull ring

Sunday was somewhat slower with a sleep in, walk up the hill (with a Jesus statue on top) for a view, some lunch, some people watching, a photography exhibition by Isabel Munoz at the very modern Kursaal building, followed by some more tapas for dinner (don't do this if you are on the atkins diet - the tapas are carb-loaded!).



The view from the top



Laura & I at the beachfront

Monday was an early start as we made our way on buses back to Santander via Bilbao. I was dying to see the Guggenheim Museum. And we did see the building, but we didn't get to go inside because it is closed on Mondays!! We saw the city though and had a final lunch before doing the return trip home. I suspect the highlight of Bilbao is the museum - San Seb seems to have more character.



The front view of the closed museum with 'the puppy'

I really like what I have seen of Spain so far and can't wait to see some more!