San Sebastian - a magical city on the ocean
As part of the bus tour "Two Poles of Passion" we stopped for one day in the most luxurious Spanish resort town of Donostia-San Sebastian. I will share with you my impressions of how our day went.
Day Eleven: San Sebastian is a dream city where you want to live.
On this day, we woke up before the alarm on the phone sang. The desire to see the dream of many tourists as early as possible did not let us sleep only. After a very good breakfast, already at 7:55 we set off back to Spain, to the dream city of San Sebastian. In total, you need to drive 55 km there: 37 km from them to the border, and another 18 km from the border. When we left Biarritz, it was not even quite dawn yet. Beautiful and rich villas, mostly pink, floated past the windows of the bus. As they say: you can’t forbid living beautifully ...I suppose that some citizens of our country also have villas there.
We arrived in San Sebastian at 9 am.
The city had not even woken up yet, there were practically no cars or people on the streets. The bus stopped on the embankment of the Urumea River, in front of the building of the city theater. There, our guide to San Sebastian, Andrei, was already waiting for us. And here we witnessed such a natural phenomenon as the tide of the ocean. We stood almost at the very mouth of the river, and there was very little water in the river, bare stones were visible at the bottom. But then, before our eyes, the picture began to change, water went from the ocean into the river, but not gradually, but in a rather high wave, a kind of small tsunami.
We all opened our mouths in surprise and grabbed our cameras, but the moment was lost. The guide told us that the difference in water levels in the river at high and low tide can reach up to 5 meters. The embankment was built with a margin of height.
The first impression of the city was this: I have seen this somewhere before. And when they began to walk the streets, I realized that this is very similar to Parisian streets and houses.
But here you will not see cars parked right on the streets, there are no annoying Senegalese, and the streets are very clean, with palm trees in the middle of the streets and flowers on the windows. When Andrei began his story about the city, he confirmed that it was for the style of building the city, borrowed from the French capital, that San Sebastian is called the southern little Paris.
The name of the city was given by the monastery of San Sebastian of the same name, the Basques call the city Donostia, so since 1980 the city has been officially called Donostia-San Sebastian. The history of the city began in the twelfth century, it burned out completely from fires six times, and was rebuilt again. Several times the city was captured by the French, and then it was liberated again. And only during the time of the Dowager Queen of Spain, Maria Christina, from 1885, he began to acquire its current appearance. It was this queen who made the city her summer residence, and since then it has become the most prestigious resort in Spain.
A summer palace was built for the royal family, with a beautiful view of the Sink Bay and the island in the middle of the bay. But not only the royal family loved to relax here. After the dictator Franco came to power, he also spent all the years of his reign summers in San Sebastian.
Our tour began at the theater building, we walked through the streets of the old city, which had just begun to wake up. Can another city afford to sleep until 9 am? I saw this back in Andorra, but supermarkets were already working there at that time. And here at ten o'clock a dairy store was just opening, near which there was a model of a spotted cow of natural size. Not far from it, we saw a model of a 2-meter brown bear, which was put up with us near the fur store. Here is such a creative advertisement of your product. There was no rush or morning bustle anywhere.
Vegetables and fruits have just begun to be put on the shelves near the huge underground market, but there were no buyers yet. We pass by several churches that miraculously survived after so many destructions. I even went to one of them. As they say: modestly, but with taste.
From the old city we go out to the shore of the Gulf of the Shell, and we cannot help but exclaim admiringly from the wonderful landscape we have seen. The tide had already ended, the ocean was quietly splashing in the bay, and around the bay, a beautiful 2 km long embankment curved like a seashell (hence the name of the bay). And from the promenade there are slopes to a wonderful sandy beach. But we are just starting our tour, we will return to the beach in two hours. In the middle of the bay is Santa Clara Island. You can get there by boat.
Along the embankment of the bay, we come to a very beautiful square, with a luxurious city hall building. Previously, this building was the city's casino.
Then we go through a beautiful park with palm trees, and at the end of the park we see a monument to the immortal characters of Cervantes: Don Quixote and Sancho Panso. Very popular characters in Spain. As the guide told us, there is a legend that Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the secret order of the Jesuits, became the prototype of Don Quixote. And the homeland of the main Jesuit is the Basque Country. So the descendants decided in this way to perpetuate the memory of their famous countryman in his homeland.
From the embankment we turn into the central area of the city towards the high spire of the city's Buen Pastor Cathedral. Everyone was free to enter it. The cathedral has beautiful stained glass windows and a central rose.
After the cathedral, we go out again to the river, but not near the mouth, but directly to the bridge of Maria Christina. There are several bridges across the river in San Sebastian, but the most beautiful of them is the Queen Bridge.
We stand on this bridge, and already we see that the city is gradually waking up. There was even a fisherman with fishing rods on the bridge. You need a license to fish here.
We cross the bridge to the other side of the river, and we are already going back to the mouth of the river on the other side. Here, too, beautiful low buildings, nothing spoils the view of the city with modern boxes. But at the very end of the tour, on the shore of another beach in the city, we saw two concrete cubes that stood out too sharply from the general architectural ensemble of the city. This is the 12-year-old building of the Congress Hall, which hosts international film festivals. From the Congress Hall there is direct access to the Zurriola beach and the open ocean. My opinion is that these two concrete monsters are clearly not suitable for the luxurious look of the city.
Through the next bridge we again return to our bank of the river, and find ourselves near the theater, where our tour began.
We did not mind, and now the three of us are walking again along the boulevard, then again we go out to the city hall and the monument to Don Quixote with a squire. Now you can safely take beautiful photos in these places.
The Royal Palace beckons from afar. We have free time until 17:00, so we decide to go there to the palace and climb up to it. Slowly, we go all the way, admiring the bay, the island, the golden sandy beach, small yachts in the bay. The sounds of the piano are heard from the royal palace, and an advertisement for some kind of concert hangs. But men do not even want to listen to go there. We are limited to external examination. The palace is rather modest. Some of the houses of our businessmen will be cooler than the royal summer residence. But from the platform from the palace there is a stunning view of the entire bay.
We hold a photo session here and decide that it's time to slowly move to the beach.
And then a crazy thought flashes through my mind: what if we have a small picnic on the beach. Enjoy two in one: swim and dine right on the ocean. This will never be forgotten. The men were a little doubtful whether they would fine us for this? But, the city takes courage, and on the way we go to a small market, and there we buy everything we need for a picnic: meat and cheese cuts, two huge baguettes, several cans of beer, grapes. And the men, whispering among themselves, bought some vodka. My husband always has plastic cups with him in his shoulder bag.
We go down to the beach in the very center of the bay, there is now the widest place to the water. The beach is half flooded during high tides, but now it's 13:00 and low tide has begun again, so the beach has become twice as wide, but where the water stood, the sand is still very wet.
We settle down on the dry and warm sand, spread out our jackets, and we have a homemade beach towel. While the men were undressing, I was the first to run to try the water. The water was probably 19 degrees, but my husband said it was warmer.
I ran on the water and rejoiced like a youngster when a wave of surf rolled over me. The men went deeper and swam to the buoys. I did not go to the depths, and the surf wave all the time enveloped me in very salty water. I'm not a fan of cool water, but here I didn't feel cold at all! I live near two seas, but I have never had to swim in such water.
Splashing like this for about ten minutes, we go ashore and start our picnic. And you know, no one even paid attention to us, so all our fears were in vain. When the men opened the vodka, it turned out to be anise : )))))!
And here we are sitting on the chicest beach in Spain, on the shores of the Bay of Biscay, and after swimming in the ocean, we drink aniseed vodka, wash it down with beer, and eat delicious cuts. Yes, it was an unforgettable sight! ! !
After a snack, we went for a swim in the water a few more times, and warmed ourselves with aniseed vodka. So two hours flew by. The time has come for us to pack up and leave the beach, because we also wanted to look into the underground market.
Again, slowly, we return back to the old city, and go down the escalator to the underground market. There is also a huge supermarket there. We need to think about dinner. Prices in this market were thirty percent higher than in Barcelona, and for some goods even more. Although the grapes were the same price. But there were expensive vegetables and fresh meat. I paid attention to it. So the dream city is expensive to live in it.
According to our guide Andrei, housing here is especially expensive.
If in Madrid the cost of 1m2 of housing is 4-5 thousand euros, then in San Sebastian such housing is already 12-15 thousand euros. But that didn't stop him when he first came here and saw the city. He could no longer bring himself to leave it. As I understand it!
After the market, we again go out to the mouth of the river, I leave the men with bags to sit on the bench to wait for the bus, and I myself again go to the other side to the surfers' beach for a photo session. And then something incomprehensible begins: a police helicopter begins to patrol low over the mouth and this beach, and a group of people and several police cars stand on the beach. I realized that something bad happened here.
As I was later explained, one of the surfers did not return from the water. Here on the beach of Zurriola a strong wind arose, and the ocean began to storm again. We were in the bay, and we did not feel this storm there.
And here I saw how the ocean changes in an open place, and I felt that the ocean is a very dangerous element, and one cannot treat it with carelessness.
Waiting for the search results, I no longer had time, and I return back to the place of our meeting. Our bus is already on the embankment. All our bandmates come up and everyone is very happy with how the day went in San Sebastian. It was a day of unforgettable relaxation : )))))! Our miner said that he now had a goal: to save money and come here again next year. I had about the same feeling. San Sebastian enchanted me. After all, there are still so many interesting things left unseen!
Departure at 17 o'clock, and we are going to spend the night in France in the city of Bordeaux. Bordeaux is 237 km away. and already at half past eight in the evening we are already settling in the hotel "APPART'CITY Ré sidence hô teliè re Bordeaux Centre". We again have a two-room apartment with a kitchen. I cook soup for my husband, and my favorite oatmeal with fruit.
We feel at home.
After dinner, we are already preparing for a meeting with France and Paris.
