Sat. 09-08-07 -- San Sebastian, Spain
Originally published on: 10-06-07
Slept like babies with our earplugs in and got up this morning around 10am. We got ready and packed up and the pension owner found us a place. We met Jeff and Jessie down in the Plaza then walked over to our new pension. The rooms were clean, but they were basically spare bedrooms in an old lady's house. 50 euros for the night was nice & cheap so we paid up.
Jeff & Jessie left their bags at their old place, so we walked over there to pick them up. Then we walked back to Victorina's (the old lady's) to drop off their bags. It was like noon by that time and none of us had eaten yet, so we were really hungry! We ended up finding this egg theme restaurant named Don Huevons that served sandwiches and stuff, most with eggs. We ate breakfast/lunch, then we went on a long walk around all of San Sebastian's coast.
We started east of the river, walked along the coast across the river and behind Parte Vieja. We circled around Monte Urgull and then climbed up the coast side of it to get some amazing views of the bay. We came down on the city side and walked south between Parte Vieja and the harbor and then went down on the beach at Playa de la Concha. We all took our shoes off and walked in the water until the beach ended. We continued along the bay and made our way to the funicular (a cable driven rail car that climbs steep hills) and rode up the side of Monte Igueldo.
The view from here was even better than the other monte. The bay is so beautiful with sandy beaches ringing most of the shoreline. There are green hills marking the land on both sides of the mouth of the bay, and a green hilly island dead center in the mouth of the bay. Once we rode the funicular back down, we finished circling the bay and found some abstract sculptures and these neat manmade blowholes in the walkway (when the waves would come in, these 5-6 blowholes would shoot air out at high speed). After we had seen what we could see, we headed back toward our hotel.
Jeff & Jessie wanted to take a nap, so we decided to split up and meet back up at 9pm. Kara and I walked down on the Playa de la Concha again then went to our room to change for the beach. Then we crossed the street and laid down on La Playa de la Zurriola. We relaxed there for an hour or two, then we went back to our room and took showers to wash off the sunscreen. We hung at our room a little while longer then walked over to the Plaza de la Constitucion.
When we met up, Jessie had written down some restaurants that were recommended in her guidebook, so we went in one and sat down at a table. We looked at the menu, and only had vague ideas of what this food was. We made Jessie order for us, family style, and it really worked out well. We got a plate of cured meats which we ate with pieces of bread. Then came a fish dish which was cod in a tomatoes & peppers sauce that was pretty tasty. Then finally came some yummy local cheese with a fruit paste thing and walnuts. It was all good; thank goodness for our translator!
We left the restaurant and went back to the bar that was nice to us the day before. They remembered us from the night before and joked around with us a bit. When you order beer here, they give you just a little bit in a smallish glass. Today when they poured my beer, they put a little in and said "ok?" We said "more" and he filled the glass (which was about the size of a restaurant water glass) to 2/3 full and asked "ok?" with a big smile. We said "more" and he filled it all the way up and acted like he was doing something completely crazy. Even the people at the bar were like "wooooah" as he filled it up. It was all pretty funny because that was clearly a comically large beer for their standards, but it was still pretty small by our standards. We had a few tapas (I had some fish on bread and skewered octopus) and then we paid and left.
We walked back toward our rooms and sat at an outside table at a bar one block from our place. We had a few more half-full beers and then went to our room. We couldn't get the front door unlocked because you have to turn the key like 3 times in the right direction, so the old lady came to the door all annoyed. I think she thought we were drunk (I heard her say "ladrones") but we weren't. We just couldn't figure out her crazy door!
