The rain in Spain falls mainly on . . . San Sebastian.
We arrived around 1:30 PM and checked into our hotel, Pension Kursaal. San Sebastian is a beautiful coastal city with river flowing through the middle and lined with massive rectangular blocks. It is truly beautiful, rain or shine. And boy did it rain. And the wind blew. At points we even saw snow and heard hail. It gave us time to do laundry finally. (We did it by hand and saved 20 euros. The hotel included a heated drying rack, which was beyond awesome.)
Determined not to miss the city, we grabbed an umbrella from the hotel and hiked up Mount Urgull, a series of batteries built in the 16th century and held variously by the Spanish, the French and the English. We had the place to ourselves, no surprise thanks to the weather. It was a coordinated effort to hike, hold the umbrella, and take pictures without getting the camera wet. The view is wonderful - you can see all of San Sebastian and the storm rolling in.
We toured the San Telmo Museum on Tuesday. It is free every Tuesday - another win for our budget! We started with the Gaul exhibit (what seemed like hundreds of clasps, or fibulas) then continued through fine arts, modern times and basque art. The church exhibit included a spectacular video display maximizing the church's gigantic wall space, using two to three simultaneous projectors at a time.
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| Safety first! Use the hand rail? Electric stairs? |
We eventually got to the beach just in time for really heavy rain and winds and that's when we gave up. It was time to stop touring and just eat and drink. And this is the best part of San Sebastian:
PINTXOS (pronounced peenchos)
The bar tops everywhere are lined with these bite-size appetizers. Jason found out San Sebastian has more Michelin stars per capita than anywhere in the world and we would not be surprised if that is all in pinxtos. They range in price from 1-3 euros at the places we visited. You get a plate, pick your pintxos, and they give you the total at the end. We never ate a full meal the entire time we were there - just pintxos and drinks.
Now, pardon us while we indulge you in pintxos (since that's really all we have to show for San Sebastian ....
Next up, France!
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