San Sebastián

The city of beaches and pinxos. We left the van near the university and rode our bikes along the promenade to the city center. As some friends were just there we had some restaurants we wanted to check out and - finally - eat some real basque cheesecake.
Although by now we spent so much time in countries with a special rhythm regarding meal times and siesta, we’re still bad at having lunch at lunch time. Always late. And we’re not good in deciding which restaurant to stop at: „oh that place looks nice! But let’s check out the other one before deciding“ is our manner. We managed to sit down and decide for one, knowingly of the closing times. Unfortunately the time we ordered the waitress told us they only have half the menu, and for sure not the vegetarian options available anymore. So we left. But we really wanted to try pinxos! They all eat them here all the time! I didn’t know what it was before reading about San Sebastián: they’re basically the San Sebastián version of „tapas“; mostly fish and seafood, but also cheese. Unfortunately the vegetarian options are quite limited in most restaurants. And even if a restaurant is open, the kitchen might be closed.
We found some places for us to have a bite, a drink, a cheesecake and a coffee and walked around a lot.
For dinner we looked for a vegetarian restaurant. There were some (like three, four?) and decided for one. Even though we were there when they opened, it was full already on a Wednesday night and they didn’t seem to be willing to reserve a table for the „next round“. So we had Indian for dinner.
Afterwards we went to the beach and went for a swim in this super warm and calm bay; crystal clear water you could see through to the ground even though the you could already see the stars appearing on the night sky.

I had quite some expectations for San Sebastián and to be honest, I think I was a tat disappointed.
Even though there are so many tourists for a short visit, reservations for restaurants seem necessary (at least for „traditional“ vegetarian dinner) and if you’re vegetarian I’d recommend to pick some restaurants before trying to pick one in the city.
Still: San Sebastián is a beautiful town, has nice very different beaches (one in the bay, on a bit more open) and is worth a visit.Read more