Our third visit to Spain, and every visit makes us love it more. The Balearic Islands of Mallorca and Ibiza delivered the goods with sunshine, beaches, tapas and sangria, and San Sebastián offered all of this too, plus some exceptional food experiences that will go down in the highlight reel of EuroSummer2018. That we got to share it with Steve and Binni for four glorious days was icing on the cake, and speaking of cake the cheesecake here has set a new benchmark in deliciousness.
San Sebastián is world renowned as a food destination and had been on our radar for a while. It regularly snares a top place in lists of best eating cities, foodie destinations and top restaurants of the world, and is well represented in the Michelin Guide for international dining, holding a significant number of Michelin stars per square metre, beaten only by Kyoto and Tokyo in Japan. With a short time in town, and being August in Europe, our first task was to establish our eating schedule and we literally made lunch and/or dinner reservations for each day to secure our tables.
We were lucky enough to secure reservations at two of the ten Michelin star restaurants in town, and both are worthy of mention for the special memories created there. Restaurant Kokotxa was the scene of a relaxed long lunch that offered seven courses of gastronomic art on a plate, accompanied by cava (Spanish sparkling wine, not the Fijian tribal brew!), wine and cocktails. About 20 minutes outside of town towards the Spanish/French border and worth the effort to get there was Restaurant Alameda, another extravagant eating experience where the staff were entertaining and the venue was modern and sleek, despite being in a random little town seemingly in the middle of nowhere. Not in the Michelin Guide but equally awesome was A Fuegro Negro, a fun pintxos/tapas degustation bar worth the effort of securing a reservation.
Around the schedule of eating in some incredible restaurants, the pintxos bars to be explored in the tiny laneways of the old town could honestly have kept us entertained for days. Slightly different to the standard tapas served in the rest of Spain, pintxos (pronounced “pinch-oss”) are traditionally served in the northern Basque region and are generally pierced with a toothpick, the name derived from the Spanish word “pinchar”, to pinch or puncture. Basically, they are delicious morsels of goodness piled onto a tiny piece of bread and held in place with a toothpick. They are available at every bar, are cheap and because of their size it is possible to consume them in large quantities, and you must be standing at the bar for maximum enjoyment. It’s genius!
Beyond the eating, the beaches are beautifully wide and long with sand, and the walk up to the Castillo de la Mota is worth the effort for the views back over the city, with the added benefit of burning off some calories. San Seb is also well positioned for a day trip or two to some of the surrounding towns and cities, and we took a drive to Pamplona to check it out. It’s another nice Spanish town with the obligatory churches and pretty laneways, although not really worth the effort unless you choose to time a visit with the running of the bulls festival I guess.
We also took a day trip to France (because we could!) and had lunch and a wander around the surfing town of Biarritz, less than an hour from San Sebastián. It happened to be ridiculously cold and catching some sun on the beach was a no-go, so we reluctantly drank wine and enjoyed the opulent lobby bar of the Hotel du Palais – a summer palace of French royalty dating back to the mid-19th century, and a window into a luxurious bygone era.
Finally it was time to say adios to San Seb and España, and as has been our luck this year we were greeted at Bilbao Airport with the news that our flight would be at least 5 hours delayed. On this occasion though, the delay was a welcome gift as we hopped into a taxi and made a beeline for Bilbao’s Guggenheim Museum, a sister to the original museum in New York City and breathtaking to behold from the outside. Art exhibits on the inside were also lovely, and although the flight delay cost us time and a 110 euro taxi at the other end, it was a special way to finish our San Sebastián adventure. Get it on your next euro-itinerary!
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