This is the fabulous San Sebastian on the northern coast of Spain - in Basque country. For you wine gurus out there, that is Rioja country (pronounced Ree-o-ha) and it was fabulous wine and fabulous food for the 5 days we were stranded there.
In the Basque language of Euskadi, San Sebastian is called Donostia. All public signage is in both languages, Spanish and Basque. This makes signposts quite bulky. And yes, the Basque riders in La Tour de France ride for Euskatel Euskadi. Euskatel being a telephone company - Euska-tel and Euskadi meaning traditional Basque language.
San Sebastian is in a beautiful bay with two high headlands at each end and an island in the middle. Outside the headlands (and island) is the Atlantic Ocean. When the weather is good - it is very special. But when the weather turns bad - well, it is wild!
And why were we stranded in San Sebastian? Because we mostly travel without forward bookings, usually going online the night before we need a place to stay and picking up something without a problem. But we left Bilbao without a forward booking, thinking that we'd break out the computer after a good lunch in the hills overlooking the blue bay of San Sebastian, and pick up a booking just across the French border at St. Jean de Luz.
The problem was, that after an exhausting month circum-navigating a very hot Espana, we had completely underestimated the impact of the 14 July Bastille Day Public Holiday and long weekend coupled with French school holidays. We could not get a booking. So we had to stay in San Sebastian for 4 days until we could find a booking in France. This is about the only time in 40,000 km of driving in Europe that we have ever really struggled for accommodation.
We were actually heading for Bordeaux on the Atlantic Coast of France but there was NO accommodation to be had ANYWHERE in South West France. So we had to drive many hundreds of kilometres off our planned course, to sort of "prop" in the area around Avignon on the Rhone for a week until we could back into south west France near to Bordeaux.
While we waited in San Sebastian we experienced 24 hours of .....
... wild weather from the Atlantic.
But the weather clears and the sun shines again and you forget the wild Atlantic on your doorstep.
This is the waterfront area. We hopped on a little boat here and went out to see the island in the middle of the bay.
The island is very popular - wall to wall people really.
Not much space to spread out .
After the island we poked around the streets looking at food (Well, what else? Shopping is not our thing.)
This is one of the best tapas bars in San Sebastian, so if you've ever wondered how tapas is done in the world's capital of tapas - this is it!
Yes, those are legs of ham hanging from the ceiling with a plastic drip tray underneath.
The bar is absolutely choca-block with plates of fabulous food. When you come in they give you a plate - you select what you want and then go to the guy at the end of the bar for your drink. You then pay him for your drink and food. You can go back as many times as you want. The food was indescribably good - but when I photographed it, it looks pretty ordinary. But believe me it was fabulous!
The bar is absolutely choca-block with plates of fabulous food. When you come in they give you a plate - you select what you want and then go to the guy at the end of the bar for your drink. You then pay him for your drink and food. You can go back as many times as you want. The food was indescribably good - but when I photographed it, it looks pretty ordinary. But believe me it was fabulous!
Of course there are many more photos of San Sebastian, both the wild storm and the following tranquil blue calm, but I can't send too much as we have poor internet access at our hotel.
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