San Sebastian, a Basque Country Jewel

Located on the northern Spanish coast and near France is San Sebastian de Donostia.

We headed there not only because it seemed like a beautiful place to visit but also because near San Sebastian is where my last name Aristizabal originated from.   I wanted to see Basque people,  hear their language, understand their culture and explore their land.  Although 3 days was not enough,  I got a glimpse and I liked what I saw.

The Basque are very proud of their autonomous status.  Although Basque Country is technically a part of Spain, they are somewhat independent, and different from the Spanish.  And don't ever compare them to the French.  Their language, Euskara, is unique from all other languages in the world, and very very different from Spanish.

Our Hotel

Because of the regatas (more to come on that later) the city was packed with tourists and it was hard to find a hotel that would accomodate us during our entire stay so we had to stay in two different hotels.  The first hotel that we stayed at was the NH Aranzazu.   Again, no pics on this hotel, but it was clean and comfortable, however not very unique and kind of sterile and commercial looking.  We didn't like that it was at least a 20 minute walk from NH Aranzazu to the "Parte Vieja" and the Concha beach,   but luckily the bus system was awesome and we managed to learn it pretty quickly.  At night we got a cab ride which set us back only 8 euros and was very worth it when you have been walking for at least 9 hours straight.

The second hotel we stayed at was Hotel Niza.  It is a small boutique hotel on Concha beach.  A 10 minute or less walk will take you the "Parte Vieja", where the party is at.  Our room was small but very quaint, and we had a tiny balcony with views to the street.  If you are into views (because you think you will spend more time in your room than outside), then I recommend you get the ocean view rooms.  The bathroom was medium sized and very clean as well.

The coolest part of Hotel Niza?  The elevator.  Somewhat impractical, but very vintage and cool.  It was also not very smart.  Who ever pressed the button first would get the elevator, and it would not stop  on your floor if you pressed the button second.  You had to wait until the people got off , and then you needed to press the button again and hope you were the first to press it.  None the less, it was worth the annoyance for the experience.  Also it beat going up and down to the fourth story.

Places we Visited

San Sebastian is small, so it was easy to tour around.  This we discovered on our first day when I got us lost going to our hotel. Black is the route that I took us through.  Red is the route that we should have taken.  And let me tell you, the black route was not easy, especially with luggage.  There was a hill, narrow corridors, and crazy fishermen that did not look back before they cast.  Rossy was especially unhappy that the luggage's wheels kept making a rattling noise against the cobblestone as we wheeled them as fast as our little feet could take us.  "Where the Fu$# are we going" was all I heard besides the rattle of the luggage.  And my ears ignored all.  I was just so happy to see the ocean.  But truthfully, half way through, the ocean's sight became second priority in my mind and I really started to wonder where the Fu%# we were.  So right around the middle of the peninsula, sweaty and tired, we stopped to take a look.  All we saw was ocean, behind us a mountain.  Ok.  Yes, I fucked this up, I thought.  Luckily, some nice lady and her french bulldog saw our despair and nicely let us know that San Sebastian was behind the mountain and that we were on a peninsula.  She also led us back to town.  And as soon as we got to the hotel we made sure to get a map.

Back at the hotel, we felt more confident about San Sebastian and Rossy was happy again.  We brushed up and headed to the tapas bars..or as the Basque call it, Pintxos bars.

A couple of our favorite Pintxos:

Blood sausage wrapped in bacon and veggies,

 Octopus,

 Little fish that tasted like imitation crab,

 Brie, corn and ham (Jamon Serrano)

Mini ham sandwiches

Caramelized onions and mushrooms in a pie crust

Can't remember what this was...

Sardines with veggies.  This was my favorite.

 Olives

And we washed all the pinxtos down with some Sidra, which is a local apple cider.  It was tart and tannic,  and is "thrown" into your glass to aerate and thus enhance the aroma and taste.  It tasted like a home brew, and I loved it.

And as the night progressed, things got crazier.  The sidra, sangria and beer were flowing and the crowd got wilder and wilder.

The next day was the Regata, a series of boat races that take place the first two Sundays of September.  And we were lucky enough to be there for them.

No wonder all the hotels were booked....massive crowds travelled to San Sebastian to watch these small colorful boats compete against each other.

The jelly fish parade was particularly cute.  The black floating ball was the mama jelly fish, and her baby jellies floated right behind, and all to the beat of techno.

After watching a couple of regata races, we were ready to move on.  Walking around we stumbled on the entrance to mount Urgull, located on the peninsula where we got lost.

At first glance it seemed like it was going to be a short and quiet hike, but it ended up being a loud and really long hike. You see, it was filled with kids (14 and up..mostly 14-17 age range though).  There was drinking, pot smoking, and everybody was absolutely wasted (it was 3 pm) and although it goes against all views of what kids of that age should be doing (sports, school...etc), I just couldn't criticize or judge them.  In my view, these kids were lucky to have the freedom to drink and hang out with their friends so openly.  I envied their carefree attitude, vibrant energy and the simplicity of their party.  Oh, and when they saw that I was taking pictures, the girls were all about posing for me and many came up requesting their pic to be taken.

Just a bit of sangria left in that bottle...and it's a LONG hike back down. Good thing you are 15 years old.

Carefree. Thanks for reminding of what it feels to be in the now.

 So it did get a little out of control.  The ambulance came for someone.  

A party with a million dollar view.  Do these kids even realize how lucky they are?

There was a dance off between these girls...and they wanted their picture taken.

And finally at the top of the mount, where the Jesus Christ was at, blessing the debauchery. 

The views were amazing

Playa Concha.

The next day we took a boat tour around the San Sebastian coast.  And although it threatened to rain, we were lucky to beat the storm.

Steps that lead straight into the ocean.

 Plataforms with slides...for those who can swim to them.

 Basque Country Flag (Euskal Herria)

 A view of San Sebastian from our boat

 This little dog did not like when humans swam in the water.

On our last night I tried for the first time night photography.  We found a quiet spot in front of our hotel, popped open a bottle of wine and started experimenting...

Mount Urgull and "Parte Vieja" of San Sebastian.

Santa Clara Island

After three days in the jewel of Basque country I was not ready to leave.  But with only five more days of vacation, we needed to move on to our next destination: Barcelona...! Oh and how different that was......

Soccer Game Craze

Like I said, we were disappointed that we didn't get to go to a soccer game while visiting  Madrid.  But we were pretty lucky to be in town for the European Union Super Cup, in which Atletico Madrid was playing against Chelsea at Monaco.

Every other person walking around had an Atletico Madrid shirt, and the energy of the city was high, full of anticipation before the game.  

And when the game started?  Silence.  But after an Atletico Madrid gol, uncontrollable screams erupted from everywhere...

And then the chants came and went as the game unrolled... 

Because of our jet lag, we couldn't stay past 10 pm to celebrate with the locals...we tried...but in the end our bodies just gave in.

At 6 am though I had a rough awakening from none other than Rossy, warning me that there was something very dangerous happening in our back yard.  Forgetting I was in Madrid in a hotel I also panicked but soon enough we realized that it was just the locals still partying.  A sign that the Atletico Madrid had won, and that we had missed an awesome celebration.  Bummer.

That morning, on our walk to the metro station we saw a guy standing in the middle of the road playing chicken with the cars, and on the metro ride to the train station a girl wrestled her boyfriend on the floor -for the whole entire ride- with her dress up to her belly button, flashing her electric blue panties to all of the passengers.

Next time, I want to hang out with the brave guy and that panty showing girl.  Sounds fun.

The Short Stay at Madrid, Spain

I screwed up.  While planning our vacation I thought we wouldn't like Madrid as much as the other Spanish cities that we were planning on visiting, but now that the vacation is over I realize that I loved Madrid and regret not staying there an extra day.  Hopefully this won't be the last time we get to go there. I also blame AirFrance (and the complicated Paris airport) for cutting our Madrid time 4 hours short by not letting us board the plane even though we made it at exactly 10 minutes before departing time.  So we missed our flight, but managed to make the best of it by eating some delicious macaroons at the Laduree shop at the Paris airport, and we also got a complimentary sandwich and drink from AirFrance.   Either way, when we finally made it there, it was beautiful, clean and a bit too calm for my taste, but it just so happened that we arrived at siesta time.  Bummer.  Because I was in major party mode.  

Our Hotel

We stayed at the Vinnci Soho.  Unfortunately I forgot to take pics of our room, but take my word for it that it was pretty awesome. The room was very clean, modern and comfortable.  We really have no complaints about this place.  Also, it was located in a very central and safe area.  We highly recommend this place.  

Places we Visited

With such limited time, and not going by the regular tourist book, we probably missed out on a lot of interesting sites, but we did end up at random places that we probably would have not found if we went by the book.  

Plaza Major was our first touristy stop.  Beautiful!

Monument to Felipe III.  Supposedly a horses position tells a story about the rider.  A horse with one leg above ground means that the rider was wounded in battle.

After the plaza we stumbled on a great find: Mercado de San Miguel.

A foodies dream come true.  It was less market and more a collection of small specialized restaurants that cooked up some fabulous tapas.

Rossy really wanted razor clams, so our first stop was at the seafood shop. A pack of these were drenched in an olive oil and garlic and microwaved for a couple of minutes.

Microwaved razor clams.  I am not sure if microwave would have been the cooking method of choice, but either way Rossy liked them.  They were a little chewy and long for my taste though.  I might have also eaten it incorrectly.  I was a little scared of choking on it, so I chewed and chewed and chewed until I though it was safe to swallow.  Not sure I will repeat razor clams any time soon.

Pork lovers heaven.   I gave it a shot....but given that I can't stand the taste of pork (except for bacon), as expected, it was not very delectable for me.  Rossy loved it though.

These were my favorite.

The pastry shop. We didn't eat anything here, and I kind of regret it.  It seemed worth the sugar overload.

Part of the trip was trying new foods despite their appearance, so we went for the tapas that looked a little weird for us.   I was surprised that Rossy didn't like this one; for me it was definitely better than the razor clams.   I can't remember the name, but they were strings of some little fish, but it was imitation.  It tasted similar to imitation crab.  Would I have it again?  I would...but it was not my favorite for sure.  

And some stuff we just couldn't taste.  This big boy/girl was not on sale to cook onsite.  Wish we could have a taste it though.

Yum.

 Zoomed out view of one of the many seafood shops.

 We stopped by the cheese shop for some local Manchengo.

 On our walk to the palace we found this little dude. I wanted to buy him, but the shop was closed.  But I will forever have a memory of him.

The palace.  I got in trouble for taking pictures inside, and the one and only pic I took was blacked out because my ISO was too low.  But there have been others that have successfully managed to take some pics and you can see the palace inside pictures here.   I personally liked it, although part of me thought it was kind of unfair for Kings and Queens to live so ostentatiously.  If you go, don't forget to stop by the  Royal Pharmacy too (it's off on the side and easily missed).  

Gorgeous.  

The Palace's church. 

A view of Madrid from the Palace. 

Next top was the Museu Reina Sofia, which showcased an impressive collection of modern art.  

And the last place we had time to visit was the Retiro Park, which I will forever remember as the young lovers park.  

They were everywhere....

You will feel out of place if you are not making out.

Looking back, having a beer, taking pics and staring at the young lovers might have seemed a little creepy.  But truthfully, they didn't even notice our existence.  

It was hard to leave Madrid without eating bull testicles, visiting the Prado Museum,  shopping,  a soccer game, and enjoying a flamenco show, but it also gives us a reason to go back.  If there is ever a city that I will go back in a heart beat it is Madrid.  Clean, safe, beautiful Madrid.  You will be missed.