A visit to beautiful San Sebastián Spain

San Sebastián is a resort town on the Bay of Biscay in Spain’s mountainous Basque Country (near the border with France). It’s known for its beautiful beaches framed by a picturesque bayfront promenade, and world-renowned restaurants. It’s also famous for its cobblestoned old town that’s filled with “pintxo” (pronounced pincho, akin to tapas) bars pairing local wines with bite-size regional specialties.
The locals speak Basque, Spanish, and many also speak English and French. The Basque we met are proud of their history and the current state of their province, and they talk about themselves like they are a separate country from Spain. It’s interesting. The city has a French feel to its architecture and that’s because a Spanish queen spent summers in the area and she liked French architecture and style. Also other wealthy European families followed her to the area bringing their architectural styles with them. In fact, the queen is given credit for creating the tourist industry here, although big, tourism is not the top industry - there is a big industrial economy in the area (eg steel fabrication).
We took a food tour to learn about the “pintxos” bar and food scene which was a lot of fun and delicious. The city is well known for its food scene. We also took a bike tour - the city is very bike friendly. It’s also very walkable, we’ve got a rental car but have only used it to explore a few other cities in the area (see other post).
We’ve had sunshine, but also cooler weather and some rain during our visit. Tomorrow we head to Valencia.Read more