San Sebastian- Basque Country

My mom kindly offered to watch our kids so I could go with Brent to New York for an award Brent was to receive for a previous work project.  Of course we accepted her offer and planned a quick thank- you trip before we were to leave for New York. 

San Sebastian

San Sebastian had been well recommended to us ever since moving here and being one of the few areas left that we wanted to explore we made plans to take my mom there.

San Sebastian, also know as Donostia (Basque), is a northern coastal city located in the Basque Autonomous Community. The Basque Country or Basque Autonomous Community was granted the status of a nationality within Spain.  It lies on the coast of the Bay of Biscay, 12 miles from the French border. 

 



This sign is written in the 3 spoken languages within the Basque region.  The sign reads, from left to right, in Spanish, Euskera (the Basque Language) and French.  The language of the Basques has no known linguistic affiliation and is often said to be the only remaining language of the European cavemen.   Many of the Basque people want nothing to do with Spain and therefore refuse to learn Spanish.  They are offended by tourists that come wearing Spanish apparel including Spanish futbol team attire. 

This is the view from the back deck of the Hostel/hotel outside of breakfast.  The view would have been enough to take our breath away had we not been holding it due to the constant awful smell outside.

First Stop- Aquarium of
San Sebastian

This is just outside the doors to the Aquarium. This San Sebastian Aquarium opened in 1928. 

I think he is imagining what it was like for Jonah inside the whale or perhaps Pinocchio and his dad.

 

 

Amazingly this cool fish is entirely made out of cans.

 

 

 This is just half of the starfish case.  They had a great presentation of all kinds of dead sea creatures...

 and all sorts of pieces of them.

It also, as expected, had many, many tanks of a large variety of fish.   If I didn't know better I'd think Kaiya was licking her chops here. 

 

We could see into this tank from all sorts of angles. This tank housed several stingrays and sharks among the plethora of fish. 




We're not sure how they keep the sharks from eating all the other fish. 

 Once outside the aquarium we strolled along this pier and then into the town shopping all along the way while searching for the right place to eat. 

 

This is the end of the pier just before we entered through the city walls. 






The Basilica of Saint Mary of the Chorus is a baroque Roman Catholic parish church.  It was completed in 1774.

 

We eventually found this family friendly pub on the right with the green sign.  We ordered using the French menu we were given and walking outside to translate it with the English menu on the window. 

  

Here it is again on the left just before we arrived.  We had an extremely awful experience with our orders and walked out only to have to find somewhere else to eat.  We wasted nearly an hour of our day and thus we never made it very far into this city.  Good customer service is not expected here as it is in the US. 

 

 

Catedral del Buen Pastor  



Dating back only to the late 19th century, this striking Buen Pastor Cathedral features Neo-Gothic style architecture.  This is said to be the most important of the city's many religious buildings, with its spire measuring some 246 feet in height.  We never actually make it to this church, but we saw it in the distance several times.



Getaria

 

This will forever be known to us as the "Lost Shoe Beach".  It was a great teeny tiny city beach until the waves came up and washed away a couple pairs of our shoes that had been sitting at the end of this ramp. 



We quickly recovered 3 of the 4 shoes with the help of the tide but to recover the 4th we had to send Morgan in fully clothed.  We weren't too upset about the forever lost socks (one less stinky pair to wash).  We simply bought more socks in the next village (Zarautz). 

Zarautz

 Can you guess who is the bravest?  or the most spontaneous of the four?  Morgan was already wet so he had nothing to lose. 



They could have done this all night but after about an hour we started to get too cold to sit and watch any longer.

 

Back in San Sebastian

 Brent and Morgan spent some alone time together while the rest of us were spending some quality time together doing a little more shopping. 








The last morning in San Sebastian we took a quick walk around the hotel and walked (onto) these old ruins.

 Hondarribia

 Here is the beautiful harbor of  Hondarribia. We walked along (or on) the city walls to enter the old city. 

Morgan found the perfect place to climb this rampart. 

 This is the Weapons Plaza with the old Castle of Charles V on the far left. 

This was inside the old castle, which now is the home of a "Parador" Hotel.  The construction of this castle dates to the 10th century.

 We decided to explore the old town by walking along the perimeter. 

This town was quite enchanting.  It is one of my all time (in Spain) favorite towns we have been to.

Sadly, there was not enough room for Kamree on this bench. 

This is a lookout at the far corner of the city walls. 



After Hondarribia, we drove along the coast to find a beach to play on.  Unfortunately two steps forward here is a cliff straight down onto the rocky coast. 

 

The hills in the background of this picture are in France.

 We decided to drive to France since it was so darn close. Vitoria-Gasteiz- also written on these signs is where we spent our last night's stay on this trip.

Saint Jean de Luz, France

We finally settled on this beach in a the resort town of Saint Jean de Luz.  The kids did the usual beach routine: played in the waves, then in the sand, played in the waves, then in the sand and so on. 

We quickly walked around this charming resort town.....

 bought some churros (the only thing which we could afford) and headed back to Spain. 

 

Goodbye San Sebastian

 

 

Vitoria-Gasteiz

This was the view from the window of our hotel.  We arrived just before bedtime and left for home first thing the next morning to catch our flight to New York.