San Sebastián

Today we explored San Sebastián. I had always wanted to visit this city which is famous for their food! So for breakfast, we headed out in a taxi to the old town. We visited the old Mercado and checked out the local produce.

We stopped in Mendaur where we saw some elderly ladies and decided this was a good place to eat breakfast. We ordered a few pinxtos or what they call tapas here in the Basque region.



We continued to wander the old town and visited the church of St. Vincent, the oldest church in the city:

Then we went to the Basilica of Mary of Coro, one of the patron saints of the city in addition to Saint Sebastián. It’s built like a temple and has lots of modern art:

We then found the famous churro shop of Santa Lucia - we were definitely eating our way through old town:

Here are a few photos of Constitution square which included buildings with numbered boxes where they would be rented out to people to observe bullfights in the square:

We then walked along the boardwalk that outlined La Concha beach - considered one of the best city beaches in Europe!

We enjoyed more pinxtos for lunch at La Perla:

We then walked to the other beach called Ondarreta beach which we acces through this artful tunnel:

We rented a cabana where we could find some relief from the Spanish sun:

Mary and I enjoyed the water and sunbathing while Tresa napped in the shade. We spent a few hours at the beach enjoying the people watching, eating cherries and peaches that we had bought earlier. Mary Ann and I kept saying, “life is good!”

We then went up Monte Igueldo via the funicular train:

This was very convenient since it was near the beach and led us up to our hotel on top of the mountain which has these awesome views of the beach and bay:

After checking out the pool, we got ready to head out to Mugaritz, considered one of the top restaurants in the world. During this time, we learned our friend Jamie who introduced me to Mary Ann had a baby boy - congratulations Jamie and Mike!

We arrived early for our dinner, so we enjoyed wandering the garden and taking photos. One thing that we all noticed was the black toilet paper - Mary Ann promptly pointed out she thought it was impractical, but I guess they were trying to be different. Apparently over 26 countries are represented by the staff as we got a tour of the kitchen. We had over 20 bites of food and even got to sit outside with our global coffees. It was a lovely meal as we celebrated a luxurious dining experience after completing the Camino!