The next few hours were spent at the Zurriola beach. Despite being the “surfer” beach, it was pretty solid for sunbathers too. Only gripe is that the water was full of seaweed, perhaps because of the tide and because it’s directly exposed to the Bay of Biscay; La Concha and Ondaretta are both somewhat shielded by the harbor. That evening, we walked along the main beachfront (La Concha + Ondaretta) to try to go up the funicular and get a cool view of the city, but it was closed by the time we got there. We did make it to the far edge of the harbor, though, and the eclectic sculptures placed along the rocks there compensated somewhat for our troubles. That night, our group split into smaller groups to do dinner. Mine wanted to get pintxos, which was perfect because the street our hostel was on (Fermin Calbeton) was full of great and inexpensive jatetxeas, (Euskara for “restaurant”). We wandered from one to another, getting a pintxo at each one. To anyone who visits San Sebastián (if you’re studying in Spain you MUST make it there for a weekend), be sure to stay in the “Old Town” – the streets are all intended for pedestrians and it’s full of restaurants, stores, and culture.
Saturday was mostly uneventful, but the main thing we did was visit the park “Monte Urgull”, which was atop the other main hill in San Sebastián, and featured the Castillo de la Mota (a large castle) and the statue of Jesus. Entrance to the complex is free; they have a nice museum built into the castle and there are plenty of areas where one could picnic if desired. The best part about it was the view from next to the statue – note that to get to the same level as the base of the statue, you need to go into the museum and up its stairs; there are no stairs up from the outside. One could see not only all of San Sebastián, but also many nearby small towns; the photo of me below gives you an idea of the view:
On the way back, we ran into a performance of what one of the musicians described to me as the “Seven Saints Dance” – people dressed in big-headed, folksy costumes did a circle dance to a repeating song played by a band of percussionists and pipe players (it might have been a txistu ensemble, as suggested by the photo in the Wikipedia article on Basque music), and at the end of each chorus they would jump once, then twice, etc. all the way until 7 times. There were also four giant statues posted. The dancers were all carrying strangely shaped balloons made from some sort of organic material (perhaps some part of a pig), and after the dance was done they walked into the crowd, whacking certain people with the balloons. For whatever reason they made a beeline for our group and each of us received a good helping. Apparently the practice is not condoned because locals around us told the dancers to desist, because we weren’t from San Sebastián.
This weekend was also in the middle of the Euskal Jaiak festival, an annual festival that falls in the middle of September and celebrates Basque culture with dances like the one we saw, outdoor concerts, and a famous regatta. In this particular regatta, the eight top teams (as established by the results of other regattas) compete to see who is truly the best. Because of the festival, the streets were brimming even more than usual with tourists and – starting on Saturday – with fans of the various regatta teams. Each team has an associated color, and so walking through the streets we would see groups of people wearing a particular team’s uniform.
One part of the revelry seemed to be jumping off the port into the harbor; a few people from our group did it and had a blast. While we waited at the port for our divers to return in bathing suits, my roommate and I each bought a paper cone full of fresh shrimp – they were a bit small and of course salty, but a good snack nonetheless. The most interesting part of waiting for them, though, was that there was a group of kids treading water in the port, asking bystanders to throw them coins to dive for. It seemed like they weren’t making much from it, but one kid who came back to street level had quite a haul.
Sunday was the day of the regatta, and though the guys missed most of it because we insisted on getting lunch first, we caught the tail end of it and most importantly, the atmosphere. Monte Urgell, La Concha beach, and the port were all packed with spectators, and we wished we could have stayed in San Sebastián one more night because the whole town was going to be celebrating:
After a brief lazing on La Concha beach, we packed up and took the bus back to Barcelona. This weekend was such a good time some of us were wondering if we should come back…but despite how awesome this weekend in a contender for “European Capital of Culture” was, we realized that much of Spain (and Europe) remain to be explored. These next few weekends are already tied up with other trips – this weekend I’ll be in the Pyrenees thanks to CEA, the following one will be the celebration of the festival of La Mercé in Barcelona, and the first weekend in October I’ll be visiting my parents in Berlin. Beyond these, CEA will also be taking us to Girona and Figueres (home of Dalí and the museum in his honor), Tarragona and the Torres winery, and Seville, and I want to try to go to Marrakech, Lisbon, Florence or Rome, and Granada. If every trip is even half as good as San Sebastián was, then these next few months are going to be phenomenal.
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