San Sebastian, Spain

A day-trip to San Sebastian, Spain

It was easy to get from St. Jean-de-Luz, France, to San Sebastian, Spain. The tourist office in St. Jean-de-Luz even gave me a map of San Sebastian!


I visited St. Jean-de-Luz's covered market on the way to the train station. It was interesting for about 3 minutes.	All French rural train stations look the same. The only difference seems to be if you walk across the tracks (like in Sarlat) or take a pedestrian underpass (like here in St. Jean-de-Luz).

It took only 13 minutes to get to Hendaye from St. Jean-de-Luz. There, you change trains from the SNCF (French train station), here in the foreground, to the EuskoTren (cross-border commuter train), in the blue building in the background.	I missed the first EuskoTren by about 30 seconds. Round-trip to San Sebastian and back is 2.50 euros ($3.50). Trains come twice an hour, at :03 and :33 in Hendaye. (It leaves San Sebastian at :15 and:45 after the hour.) Note: If looking on the website, choose the Zumaia-Hendaia line for the Hendaye-San Sebastian schedule.

Here comes the train!	The stop for San Sebastian is called Amara. It's also the end of the line :)

Here I am outside the EuskoTren station in San Sebastian.	I walked through boring, average urban streets until I arrived at the beautiful Playa de la Concha (and lots of construction).

It was very windy, but the views were spectacular. In the background is San Sebastian's port and Monte Urgull.	Between the beach and the port is the Old Town.

My next stop was the Mercado de la Bretxa, an old covered market-turned-shopping-mall. There is still a market in the basement and along the side of the building. There are also free, clean bathrooms in the mall! Across the street (where I am standing to take this picture) is a better grocery store (either Spar or Shopi; I can't remember).

It was a Spainish market, complete with fish stalls . . .	. . . and lots of meat stalls.

The Old Town was fun to walk around. There was some shade, it wasn't so windy, and the people-watching was good. There were tons of people everywhere!	All the books and TV shows tell you about the pintxos spreads that every bar lays out. I couldn't imagine them, so it was neat to see every bar like this one, covered in food. Wow!

Once you get to the touristy part of San Sebastian, they do a good job with tourist signs.

It took me a while, but I finally found Plaza de la Constitucion, where they used to hold bullfights. It felt so much like Madrid's Plaza Mayor!	The old balcony numbers for the bullfights are still very visible on the yellow building behind me.

I walked through the port to the seaside walk around Monte Urgull. It felt like I was along Lake Ponchatrain in New Orleans! Where's the Mardi Gras fountain? :)	For some reason, I didn't walk around the point; I decided to walk up Monte Urgull for better views.

The views were spectacular. Here I am above the port.	It was so sunny! Here I am on the Paso de las Curas, above the port.

I walked along the Boulevard to the Urumea River. This is where Anthony Bourdain stands in his TV show (which I saw after I had already been there)--it must be very characteristics of San Sebastian!	Instead of walking back through town, I walked along the river back to the EusoTren station. I caught the 3:15 pm train back to Hendaye, and then I caught the 4:20 pm SNCF train back to St. Jean-de-Luz.

I enjoyed my two days in the Basque country. It was nice to see a more urban side and a resort side. If I had to choose between the two, I would go back to St. Jean-de-Luz. It was more relaxed and seem to have more to do than San Sebastian, but not much more.

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