The Spanish Basque country has always been near the top of our destination list but we never got there on our previous trips to Spain. We never had enough time to get make it work because it is far from the other Spain “go to” cities. But we have enough time now :>) and Spanish train system is greatly improved. We wanted to go here mostly for the food but we are also curious about the Basque culture. Almost everyone speaks Spanish but most people also speak Euskia (the Basque language). The language is not like Spanish or French and they can’t really trace its origins. We wanted to learn more about the mystery of the Basque people so the first day we did a guided walking tour and then went to the Basque history museum. Really interesting stuff and I want to read some more about the history. But walking around town really showed us a beautiful city. Old buildings, beautiful beaches and some big hills with monuments on them gave us a lot of walking to do and a lot of pics to take.
The real reason we wanted to come here is because we have heard so much about the food. They sell Pintxos here which are kind of like Spanish Tapas but a little bit different. There are SOOO MANY different types but a lot of them are seafood on a small piece of bread. The culture is to go to a bar and order a beer or wine (about $1.50 to $3) and then order a couple of pintxos (usually $2-$5). We would eat our pintxos and then head to then next pintxo bar and do it again. Fun way to try many different foods in many different places. Thursday nights have a special pintxo walk that brought out tons of people and many people overflowed into the street and sat and drank beer.
The weather was still warm and the beaches were popular but we had done enough beach sitting the previous week in French Basque Country. We ended up doing a lot of hikes around town and up the hills to get some amazing views and see some more old forts.
Another “must do” in Spanish Basque Country is go to the Guggenheim museum in Bilbao. We were able to get a bus that took a little over an hour to get there from San Sebastian so we made a daytrip out of it. The museum is in a Frank Gehry designed building which happens to be our 2nd Gehry building of this trip after seeing one near Arles, France. This one is much bigger and even bigger than our Frank Gehry-designed MoPop museum in Seattle. We saw a lot of great stuff from artists that we have seen before and reminded us of their art or exhibits in other museums or even in Seattle. We saw some huge iron sculptures from Richard Serra that reminded us of our triangle Serra sculpture at WWU in Bellingham. It is really cool when something in Europe connects to something we know from home. There was a Yayoi Kusama exhibit that we enjoyed more than the exhibit that was at SAM a few years ago and Kusama exhibit we saw in Stockholm Sweden.
On our last day in San Sebastian we were on another wandering aimlessly walk and we decided to visit the aquarium. We have done a lot of aquariums and they don’t usually interest us much anymore. They all tend to have similar things. But this aquarium was half filled with a history of the Basque Maritime industries which was really cool. We spent the first hour engrossed in the stories of the fishing and whaling industries, as well as ship building, when we really expected to be just looking at fish in tanks. We were also one of the only people in the museum so we had fun taking our time once we go to the big fish tanks. Sometimes you just got to be in a mood for an aquarium and we were on that day.
Our Airbnb was a bit expensive because we our original one was cancelled and we had to take what was left. I don’t think I need to share the link for it because it wasn’t that great. San Sebastian has made a rule that short term rentals cannot be rented out more than 90 days a year which is making finding an Airbnb a bit tougher. I understand the backlash on Airbnb from a housing affordability perspective but if this catches on in more cities it is going to bother us a bit. We really like staying in Airbnbs so we can cook breakfast ourselves every morning and make dinners once in a while. Also, hotels are just not as comfortable when you are staying for a few days.
Next stop Madrid!!! and we get some travel partners!!!!