San Sebastián is known as the gastronomical capital of Spain, and for very good reason. It is due to the fact that it boasts the second most Michelin stars per capita of any town in the world, behind only Kyoto in Japan. This is normally the reason people have given me for visiting whenever I’ve heard about it before. But Michelin starred restaurants are (unfortunately) probably not very high on our list while travelling with a very fussy six year old, and an almost as fussy eight year old. Well that’s not fair, Hunters palate has come on amazingly well of late and we can always find something for him to eat pretty much anywhere now, he even likes seafood and red meat these days. Bam, however, is still very challenging. But anyway, fancy restaurants probably wouldn’t be too well received by either of them, and besides, I forgot to pack my dinner jacket! Luckily, such is the foodie prowess of this Basque destination that there is absolutely no need to seek out the top end restaurants to enjoy good food, it’s absolutely everywhere! San Sebastián is the spiritual home of the humble Pintxo, small tasty bites of literally anything and everything skewered atop a slice of crusty bread. There are pintxo bars littering every street, and you can pop in wherever you see something that takes your fancy, have a quick bite stood at the bar, then move on.
We figured we might start the day with a quick wander through the old town and a visit to the San Telmo Museum. This is supposedly the pre-eminent Basque museum and as such we thought it would be well worth a visit since we are firmly in Basque country. There are indeed plenty of nice exhibits here (although not much English to be read anywhere, so Google translate will be your friend), and some great thought provoking art, all housed in a beautiful 16th century Dominican convent building with an epic brutalist concrete extension. However, our visit was altogether ruined by the overbearing museum security following us everywhere we went. During the temporary “Indésirables” exhibition, we somehow attracted the attention of the incredibly stern faced gallery attendant, who then proceeded to follow us. Ironically, we had somehow become the Indesirables which we were attempting to learn about! Now, I’m used to being followed, I get it a lot (probably due to my, ahem, rugged good looks), but why you would indiscriminately follow a family in an art gallery is beyond me. Our two kids were doing absolutely nothing wrong and were behaving impeccably. She made a total pest of herself, constantly coming over and telling the kids to stay further away from things. At one point there was a pair of headphones to listen to a commentary on a video screen. Bam put the headphones on and stood there completely still listening intently, as you are supposedly intended to. Then, all of a sudden like a buzzkill ninja, the art police appeared again telling her not to touch the exhibit! HOW ARE YOU SUPPOSED TO LISTEN TO IT WITHOUT TOUCHING IT?! We tutted, muttering loudly in protest and walked away, but she then took it upon herself to get another security guard to literally tail us no more than 5 feet away. I have never been so harassed in a museum in my life, and it completely ruined our visit. We left this exhibition to explore the rest of the museum and escape General Killjoy. But she proceeded to magically “appear” through a side door in every room we visited throughout the rest of the museum. We actually made a complaint about her behaviour to the very nice man at the front desk when we returned to the entrance. On reading other reviews on Google, it appears that this is not an isolated incident and there are many other complaints of exactly the same nature. My guess would be that the same old troll was probably the subject of most of those complaints. Shame on you San Telmo Museao. that is not the way to disseminate knowledge and encourage thought, by alienating the next generation!
Time to calm down and find some grub. It didn’t take long, like I said before you are literally surrounded by it here in the old town. We found a nice little pintxo bar and picked some bits and pieces from the counter for lunch. We thought it might be harder to find the kids something, but Hunter had a bocadillo with Serrano ham, and Bam had a mini battered cod fillet pintxo, perfect! For dessert we followed this up with a visit to an equally awesome Basque pasteleria for an assortment of sweet things.
Off we wandered through town, visiting the many independent shops and boutiques including a rather fine cigar shop where I managed to restock my Cuban cigar supply. Then we found ourselves on what I consider to be one of San Sebastian’s best features, the beach.
There are three beaches here, Zurriola stands on its own to the other side of the river, and La Concha and Ondarreta form the semicircular perimeter surrounding La Concha Bay from the old town in the east all the way around to the foot of Mount Igueldo. Zurriola is where the youth of San Sebastián hang out in the beach bars and surf shacks, playing volleyball and catching waves. The other two are the picture perfect family beaches from the holiday guides, with views out towards Santa Clara Island which blocks the worst of the rough water from entering the bay. Its about a 1.3km walk the whole way from one end to the other along the promenade or the sand, allowing plenty of time for paddling and searching for shells. Bam even managed to find a nice lady perched on a bench offering hair braids, and came away with a fresh new ‘do’!
The sea wall that has been built at the western end of the beach combined with the swell that manages to squeeze through the gap between Mount Igueldo and the island actually produces a pretty good and very consistent left handed break here, and the water was teeming with wetsuit-clad locals honing their hang-tens. Hunter was jealous, but don’t worry boy, not long now until Surfers Paradise!
The foot of Mount Igueldo houses the station for the funicular railway. This 110 year old track ferries you the 320 metres up the side of the mountain in a familiarly terrifying way. The rickety wooden carriages remind me of the ones in Bournemouth which fascinated me so much as a kid. They really do put the fun in funicular (ba-dum-bum-ching).
What do you find at the top of this perilous railway? Glad you asked, because I was going to tell you anyway. Well first of all, you find unparalleled views across La Concha, far into the city beyond. You really couldn’t get a better view from anywhere, and it’s worth the ascent just for that. But the other thing you find is a brilliantly awful theme park called simply Monte Igueldo Amusement Park. It’s one of the oldest theme parks in the world, but what makes it so great (and awful at the same time) is the fact that all the attractions are pretty much exactly the same as when they were originally built, almost like a cross between a theme park and a museum. The highlights were the water wheel powered boat ride which clung precariously to the very edge of the mountain in a dilapidated concrete trough, and the amazing Montaña Suiza rollercoaster. This is the oldest iron rollercoaster still operating in the world today and offers its riders simply epic views as it whisks you around the perimeter of the park. Hilariously there is a “brakesman” who sits on a chair in the middle of the car and controls the speed with a hand brake. God help you if he has an issue half way round, as I think he is the only in-built safety feature.
There are also loads of typical fairground style games to be enjoyed up here on the mountain. Good old “hook-a-duck” and shooting hoops over a bottle neck with an air gun, all designed to squeeze every last euro out of your pockets without actually giving you much of a chance to win anything. That’s the fun of it I guess, the “this time” mentality. Empty pocketed but happy, we made our way back to the base of the mountain just as the sun lit up the evening sky on its way towards the horizon.
Time for one last meal in this town, so we hop on the bus back at the funicular base station and head back to the old town for one last hit of those delicious pintxos before returning to the campsite for the night. I just can’t get enough of them, good job we’re leaving really!
That’s it, that was our last proper stopover here in Spain, and indeed on this first part of our year out. We have one last move to make, to a campsite in Santander near to our ferry departure, but it’ll just be a place to pack and catch up on a bit of school.