San Sebastian

Travel & Arrival - Saturday, June 17th

Breakfast and then departure at 8:30 a.m. There is a bicycle road race/event today so everyone who is leaving today is doing so early in hopes of avoiding road closures. That worked for us for the first 30 minutes by which time we would have thought we were well away. But we only got caught very briefly and it didn’t really delay us.

We arrived in San Sebastián and did a drive by of our place (too early to check-in). Then we drove down towards the beach. We found a place for lunch and wandered along the beachfront. The beach is quite crowded and topless is a thing for women here. There was a sport competition going on - no-hands volleyball which is called Footvolley. To our inexperienced eyes they looked like skilled players. If we had been paying attention we would have seen this sport demonstrated during the Brazil olympics.

Our apartment on a hill above New Town is huge - 3 bedrooms (plus 2 beds in the loft) and 2 bathrooms. Street parking is completely full but we found a space in the dead-end driveway next to our building. After starting some laundry and settling in Jeff and Larry went to take naps and Serena and Robin tried walking to the store. We found a nice little route downhill through a park and it led right to a grocery store. Unfortunately it’s 4pm so of course it was closed for siesta. Except for convenience store type places and bar/cafes in tourist areas everything closes between 1-4pm. And on Sundays most shops (shoes, clothes, hair salons, etc) don’t open at all. 

We all went out for a walk later and the market was open. But Larry & Robin had found a bigger market on Google maps so we went there instead. It turned out to be in Old Town which is not as close but not too far either. We wandered around a bit then did our shopping and walked home. Robin & Larry made us “midnight spaghetti” for dinner.

Sunday, June 18th

We have tickets for the Guggenheim in Bilbao this morning, a one hour drive from here. The Guggenheim building, designed by Frank Gehry, is large and impressive with its crazy curves. Unfortunately because of surrounding development it’s hard to get a clean picture of all of it. Out front is a flowering sculpture called ‘Puppy’. Puppy was supposed to be a temporary exhibit but Bilbao liked it so much that they bought it. We are here at a time in between temporary exhibits so the entire 2nd floor is closed. At least half of the 1st floor is a permanent exhibition of Richard Serra’s massive ironworks. We’ve seen some of his work before at Stanford but these are different pieces. It was very cool to see, walk through, and experience these artworks. There are some large sculptural pieces outside which were also cool. The remainder of the 1st and 3rd floors were mostly paintings. After the museum we wandered a bit in Bilbao and had lunch. 

Back in San Sebastián we pulled out folding chairs and relaxed out front of our apartment. We were all doing various research on our devices and suddenly we had a plan for catching a bus and wandering around one of the small peaks that help define the bays of San Sebastián. The bus stop is exceptionally convenient and runs every half hour so we didn’t have long to walk or wait. 

From the bus stop in Old Town we went up the slope of Mount Urgull. It was breezy and cool and we had beautiful views of the beach and bay. We then walked a bit of the promenade and watched kids jumping off into the water. We hadn’t made plans for dinner and now we’re out late enough for the restaurants to be open so we stopped for paella and sangria. We walked home and got there a bit after 10pm. It was still light out.

Monday, June 19th

Most museums are closed on Mondays so Serena’s plan for today was a coastal hike to the next village. But there’s a heat wave going on here and it’s unlikely that being on the coast is going to mitigate temperatures in the 90s so we didn’t do the hike. Instead we slept late and had a leisurely morning. We had some spaghetti in the fridge from dinner the other night and we had all the ingredients for a leftover spaghetti “frittata” so Serena got friendly with an internet recipe and we had a tasty breakfast.

It was nearly noon when we headed out walking downhill to explore. We have a route that we’ve travelled a number of times but today we intentionally tried to go a different way. This took us through a local park and over the train tracks on an elevated pedestrian bridge. After we crossed the river we wandered in the general direction of the Old Town beach area. Jeff wants to get in the water. Once he was in, Larry decided it looked too refreshing to pass up so he went in too. The beach is much less crowded than yesterday but there are still plenty of people out there. Quite a few were swimming around where Jeff and Larry went in. We were a bit hungry by now so we made it a mission to find an empanada cafe Robin saw on our first afternoon. We were successful. We were also conveniently close to the bus stop that goes  right in front of our apartment. We were only at the stop a couple of minutes before the bus came, so timing was perfect for avoiding a hot uphill walk. We’ve been strategic in all our walking choosing the shadiest bits and going very slow. 

Spent the hottest part of the afternoon indoors. Larry and Robin went out for the evening and we stayed in. Jeff found some English-language news on TV, including BBC which is a favorite.

Tuesday, June 20th

Today was a bit cooler. We went out for a walk early-ish and wandered through the cemetery right here in our neighborhood. Then we made our way to a large park and up to a viewpoint of the city. It wasn’t a strenuous walk but still pretty sweaty! So back to the house for showers and lunch. In the afternoon Larry and Robin went wandering in the city again and we drove to Guernica. We took the coastal scenic route which saved 10 euro on toll roads but added 90 minutes to the drive. It was beautiful and fun to see so many little villages. 

Guernica is a good-sized village. We’ve seen the original painting that Picasso did in response to the WWI bombing (it’s located in the Reina Sofia in Madrid). We’ve also seen pictures of the total devastation (80+% of the buildings were completely destroyed). It’s hard to imagine all that seeing it now. We visited both of the major museums here. First was the Peace Museum which is quite thought provoking. The displays address the concept of peace and the myriad ways it can be defined. They also discuss the process of reconciliation. Of course the bombing is addressed and they discussed briefly the violence and conflict here in the Basque region. The temporary exhibit was super cool too. It was art by American pop icon/cartoon artist Ron English. He is a bit fascinated by Picasso’s Guernica and has over time reimagined it multiple times. Initially we were a bit put off by the idea of redoing such a significant piece of art. But his purpose and how each piece was explained actually made sense and we enjoyed the exhibit.

We didn’t spend as much time at the Peace Museum as we might have because we wanted to have enough time for the Basque Heritage Museum - we really want to learn some about the history of the Basque. Unfortunately, there was an entire floor - possibly the one that usually contains the historical exhibits - that was being redone. So we got a little historical information but more cultural information.

We took the highway back to San Sebastián and met Robin and Larry at an Indian restaurant just downhill from our apartment. The food was fantastic and the they allowed us to bring in our own wine and spoke English. It’s a lovely warm evening and the walk back uphill wasn’t even sweaty. 

We have two more days with Larry and Robin. Tomorrow we drive to Logrono and Thursday we are scheduled for a tour of Rioja wines. On Friday we go to Barcelona for our last week and they head to Madrid.

San Sebastian Old Town and New Town are separated by the river. The Old Town beach is the larger one. You can walk up and over the green areas in the center and on the left and right.

It's challenging to get a picture of the Guggenheim that shows its true scope.
Here it is from down the street.

Side view of the Guggenheim as we were driving past.

This is "Puppy" (and Robin photo bombing our picture of Puppy). Puppy was supposed to be a temporary exhibit but the city of Bilbao bought it so Puppy blooms all year round in front of the Guggenheim.

Some time in the past they hosted an exhibit of over-sized balloon art (not made from balloons).
These tulips remain on display.

Richard Serra's iron sculptures occupy the largest gallery and are part of the permanent collections.
They are amazing. Serena liked "Snake" best - the wavy one. Because of the way it curves you can't see the start or end most of the time so it seems much larger when you're walking inside. Also because of the curves you usually can't see other people so it's a bit like you're alone except you can hear them everywhere around you.

There was a room with small models of all of the pieces. Walking in the full-size version of this one was unnerving. Hard to say why but after doing the walk Serena listened to the audio guide description and she had felt everything they mentioned.

Most of the time this is what you see when looking at this sculpture.

But when we first showed up, vents along the sides were issuing a blanket of fog.

The Tamarisk trees were in bloom.

The boat ramp is also a beach area for locals and a "dog beach".
Teenagers are jumping off the sea wall in the center of this photo.

These kids jumping into the water inspired Jeff and Larry to take a swim.

The beach was packed on the weekend and still crowded during the week.

This was not the most ornate grave in the cemetery.

Another cemetery view.

Due to copyright we can't show you one of Ron English's versions of Picasso's Guernica but Google can.
This is a painted tile version that was in Guernica.

This photo was taken in San Sebastian but reminds us of the vehicles we saw in Milan.
It's such a tiny little delivery van.