San Sebastian Donostia

When I originally booked our accomodations in San Sebastian, I was surprised at the lack of hotels in the downtown area. There are lots of places to stay, but they are all pensions or apartments. So, I booked Pension Nuevas Artes on Calle de Urbieta (shown below), a road that runs straight to La Concha Beach. We were eight blocks from the beach, a walk that we made twice yesterday.

Since everybody but us in this city partied until about 5:00 this morning, it was a slow, quiet start to the morning. Today we opted to try to dine at a restaurant recommended by the Frasers who have just left San Sebastian - called Xarma. It was a few kilometres from the pension which meant a nice walk down to and along La Concha Beach. This is one of the best beaches ever - widen than Waikiki, more picturesque than Copacabana and sandier than any Riveria beach. And boy, is it well used!

We are finding the achitecture here varied, but a common theme seems to be the turrets.

There is an island in the bay off La Concha called Santa Clara, apparently great for hiking.

We have picked up roaming here on my phone to help us get around. We used it to get to Xarma and it worked perfectly - coming home, a story yet to be told. When we got to Xarma, they were yet to open, so we found two bars in the area to the kill the time. The first was under a parking garage the children used as a playground, while the second was in a more aesthetic area.

Xarma was in a strangely under-touristed area and we were quickly told that they were moving next week down closer to the beach for more traffic. This restaurant has a Michelin recommendation, but no stars. As we made our way through the 7 course 65 Euro prix fixe, it became clear that the chefs here were producing dishes easily as good as many starred restaurants we have been to. The portions were small, but exquisitely presented - photos to follow. Briefly the dishes were, micro greens (not shown), melon with cucumber, cod, monkfish, Iberian pork, passion fruit ice cream and a chocolate delight (also not shown).

Following lunch, we reset the GPS to get us home. It started to lead us on a convoluted course that took us to the the upper town. Dawn was not impressed. If you've read earlier posts, you know this is a euphemism for "She was Pissed!" I didn't know where we were and didn't see a solution to trusting the GPS. Fortunately the solution rolled in, in the form of a taxi dropping off a fare. We quickly snapped it up with help from the departing clients, at which point Dawn said to the driver in English, "Thank you, I was just about to kill my husband" which he understood and got us to our pension moments later with husband still breathing. Whew! Slow time and foot rest time followed at the pension where we also Facetimed with Canada - what a great service!

Once our feet had made a minor recovery, we hit the bricks once more to head to the old town and specifically the centre of the ongoing San Sebastian Film Festival. We have seen no celebrities, but in keeping with our past performance, if there famous people to see, we don't see them. Apparently the crowd outside the super highend hotel Maria Christina were waiting to see Arnold Schwarzenegger. The day I wait to see him will be a frosty Friday in hell.

The centre of the festival with its red carpet is this impressive building at the surfing beach. Surf was up but not many surfers were up with it.

Because, apparently we still needed to eat, we headed back to the same pintxos (tapas) cafe we were in yesterday, Senra. Most restaurants at this time of night are packed and hot with standing room only, but for the last two nights we have had the same table at the front of the restaurant, but not in the smoking section outside.

This place is nicely lit up at night all along La Concha Beach - Very Pretty!