Pig Out
Trip Start
Apr 27, 2006
1
31
110
Trip End
Apr 01, 2008
San Sebastian,
Spain
Sunday, August 6, 2006
It was undoubtedly picturesque, resembling Rio De Janiero more than anywhere because of the big Jesus On The Hill statue, and having three large, nice shallow beaches that enables one to wade out a long way, particularly when the tide is out. I got in so early (6:30 a.m.) that I couldnīt check into my hostal yet, so I went down to beach and watched the people change from the early elderly beach walkers, to families, to lastly the young who were out late the night before. And, as this is Spain, late means that I saw drunken revelers walking home when I was walking to my hotel that morning.
San Sebastian also has the de riguer old town with restaurants, bars, churches and shops, a nice river, and Urgull - a fortress overlooking the crescent shaped harbor. Is is very walkable, but is very touristy in the sense that there is not much to do other than shop, sit on the beach, and eat/drink, which is fine by me given that I rarely do the cultural crap anyway. My hostal was in a good location by El Centro beach, and just a 10 minute walk to the old town, but it was louder than any place I have stayed yet.
Bridge Art
Thankfully I carry earplugs in addition to the sleepshade. Iīm learning. My room was also one of the two access points to the clothesline, so when I went out, the staff would go in to take in and put out the laundry, which was a little surprising when I came back one day to find the desk girl in there doing that. At least I had put my heroin kit away.San Sebastian is also the heart of the Basque country. The once-terrorist group ETA formally denounced using violence in March in part because it experienced vastly diminished support after the 2004 train bombings in Madrid (by Islamists, not ETA) that killed 192 people. You still see signs, posters, banners around town supporting independence for the Basque country from Spain and France. You also see the Basque flag everywhere. That said, support for independence is supposedly waning as the Basques are treated better. For instance, Franco banned their language, but it is now taught in school. And an interesting language it is, stumping linguists as to its origin, and currently being classified as a "language isolate" - a natural language with no demonstrable genealogical relationship with other living languages. Other examples are Ainu and Korean. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basque_language and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_isolate . I never learned much more than hello and thank you.
Personally, my stay was uneventful. I did the town on Saturday night, starting in the old town, moving to the bars on Calle Catholicos, and then to some late night club. Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday, however, were pretty slow and I used them to recover from 6 straight days of go-go in Santiago and in preparation for the festival starting Wednesday. I couldnīt get a reservation at either of the two three-star Michelin restaurants (and both were closed on Sunday and Monday nights), but I did eat at couple nice places. I would normally eat the pinxtos (small tapas displayed on bar tops) for lunch because they are too filling to eat before a nice dinner, and then get a nicer dinner. Lots of seafood again, but also meats, particularly cured hams and beef/veal. The langostinos and hake were particularly good.
Sorry, more informative than exciting, but I will try to rectify that in
Bayonne, France (Fetes De Bayonne, another Basque costume party)
Comments
At the beach and no photos of topless babes?
I don't care if they're grannies.
Seriously, this looks like the most gorgeous of the places I have seen.
How can you go back to pushing paper and chasing commas after this?
Re: At the beach and no photos of topless babes?
Not a lot of topless at this beach, as compared to Alicante. And I intend to never chase commas full-time again - the benefits of being a bachelor without children.