Donostia San Sebastian: a full tummy, a great view and a happy toddler too!

San Sebastian, what can I say. I think I've fallen in love with this pretty little city. We weren't even planning to go there (planning, what planning?), but a couple of weeks ago, when I mentioned that we were getting the ferry into Bilbao, my friend Sarah said that her husband had proposed to her in San Se (as the locals call it), and it was really pretty, and then I mentioned it to my uncle, Roger, who's pretty well travelled when it comes to Spain and he agreed. So that was it, we went to San Se.

View of La Concha beach at sunset, taken from the harbour

And what a treat we've had. Situated on the northern coast, with an uninterrupted view out to the Bay of Biscay, only 20km from the border with France, in the Basque region, San Sebastian enjoys a mild climate, and is a favourite holiday spot of the Spanish. It's mid November, and we've experienced temperatures of between 16 and 24 degrees. You can't often say much better than that for the Northern Hem at this time of year.

The city is sprawling; with three beaches and numerous suburbs. We stayed in the Gros neighbourhood, in a cool but spooky apartment overlooking the Zurriola beach, the one favoured by surfers, as it's out of San Se bay. I reckon it could give Bondi a run for it's money, and we enjoyed building, and destroying sandcastles there, as well as a quick and unplanned, fully clothed, dip into the surf by a certain miss Hobo, who stepped off an ankle deep sand shelf and landed in water up to her chest. It probably wasn't my best parenting moment when I laughed once Mr Traveller had whipped her up into his arms, but thankfully, true to character, she took it all with a smile.

The centre of the city is made up with a shopping district, with some pretty good shops (well, it was my birthday while we were there!), the working harbour/beachfront, and the Parte Vieja (old town) which was full of spectacular medieval architecture, and had me walking around with a crick in my neck, it was so amazing to look up at.

Looking through the Parte Vieja to the cathedral

But the Old Town has another reason to bask in it's utter brilliance, and that is one of the big reasons that SanSe is often referred to as the gastronomic capital of Spain: Pintxos.And loving food in the way that we do, us Travellers couldn't get enough of these magnificent morsels that we found on bar after bar after bar.

Jamon pintxos with huge legs of Jamon hanging behind the bar in the background

Most people will be familiar with tapas, and pintxos (pronounced pinchos) are the basques version of tapas - rumoured to be the best on offer. The bars in the parte vieja offer a veritable feast of pintxos; some just a simple piece of bread or a croissant filled with the delectable jamon, others much more elaborate, such as the Mackobe - a mini kobe burger in a ketchup bun served with plantain chips.

Classic pintxos include a piece of bread and a 'spear'to hold the topping in place. This one had goats cheese, walnuts, and, according to the barmaid 'sugared fruit', I suspect it was quince, but any pintxos expert who can verify would be most welcome!

The done thing in San Sebastian is a pintxos crawl - visiting a succession of bars, having a drink and one or two pintxos in each place. We took sandwiches for the Littlest hobo (no room for allergies at the bar, but children were very welcome) and managed three bars in any one session - I think we would probably be classified as pintxos lightweights.

The whole bar area was covered with pintxos - at a guess 20 varieties to choose from

San Sebastian was a really child friendly city. Not only did we enjoy the beaches, but there were play areas around every corner too, and the Littlest Hobo's particular favourite, a merry-go-round, built in 1900, complete with groovy Spanish pop music, right on the sea front. Handily enough, it was right next to the Parte Vieja, so everyone was happy! There are also a couple of great attractions for kids - the funicular railway, which we walked to, but sadly it was closed for refurbishment, and a hands on science museum that we read a lot of positive reports about, but didn't actually make it out to. The Spanish take their children everywhere, which means that they are always made welcome. The biggest problem we experienced was with timings - the littlest Hobo is used to eating dinner by 6 and being in bed sometime between 7 and 8, and the playgrounds are still heaving at that time; culturally, they just shape their day to the beat of a different drum. This wasn't a big issue per se, but it made eating out in the evenings near impossible; by the time the restaurants were open (it seemed to be 8pm onwards) the littlest Hobo was ready to flop into bed. This made me thankful again that we stay in self catering accommodation and we can make our days work for us. 

San Se merry-go-round

Romantic San Se takes you in and envelopes you in warm fuzzies. For somewhere that wasn't even on the radar until 2 weeks ago, I really enjoyed our time there. We originally only booked for three nights, but decided to extend after we arrived. I would definitely go again, although might book a different apartment next time, lest our night time visitor felt the need to return!

Crossing the language barrier

I didn't think that much about language issues when planning our trip to Spain until a friend asked me a few days before we left 'So, do either of you actually speak any Spanish?' 'No' I replied, still not giving it much thought. I'd been to Spain twice before, and to the Canary Islands several times and had always got by with a meagre Ola and the odd Por Favor. And Mr Traveller can speak near on fluent French, and can do a wicked Spanish impersonation. And, well, Spain shares a border with France, and they sound kind of similar, so um, we should be fine. Then she reminded me of the story another friend had told us, about her time travelling in South America when she tried to buy a torch, and became the spectacle of the store when it turned out that she was asking, repeatedly, for the Olympic flame. And she too was fluent in French, in fact her husband, who she was travelling with at the time, is half French, so that whole close proximity and sounding similar to my naive ear thing, well, clearly it doesn't stand the test. But still, for some unknown and slightly odd reason, I heard what she was saying, but the alarm bells did not ring.

Maybe my mind was still relatively absorbed with my Gran. Maybe I had been assuming that terribly ignorant and unattractive trait that the British are famous for, believing that everyone should speak English. Maybe it's been way too long since I visited a non-English speaking country, after years of living in Australia and America, and using up our major holidays on trips to visit friends and family back in England, or else exploring said countries (plus the odd trip to New Zealand, where lo and behold, they speak English) and I had just forgotten what it feels like to be a stranger in a strange land. 

We were in Korea only 4 months ago; we weren't just the only non-Korean speakers, but also the only Caucasians, to the point that the Littlest Hobo became a novelty spectacle wherever we went. But I didn't feel so much of a fish out of water as I did yesterday morning, when I wandered around San Sebastian desperately seeking contact lens fluid, clutching my trusty iPhone with google translate app all set up and ready to go. I didn't feel as embarrassed as I did when i pulled open the lift door today and nearly knocked my neighbour flat, but I couldn't think of the Spanish word for sorry. We actually gave up on having dinner out tonight, and headed back to the apartment to reheat left-overs from yesterday, despite the fact that it's my birthday today, because it all seemed a bit too difficult trying to order allergy friendly food for the littlest Hobo when we couldn't read the menu and would have to rely on good old google translate to tell the waiter/waitress what our constraints were.  

We're considering ditching Spain and taking a slower meander through France, mainly because we've learnt from earlier trips that less is more and taking it at toddler pace is an absolute must, but also because we can speak the language. 

At least sorbet is sorbet everywhere... I think.

It's not that we're having a terrible time - we're having a fantastic time actually; we're revelling in each others company, doing everything we want to do (with the exception of dinner tonight, which, in fairness probably also had a lot to do with having been out for hours and hours and feeling ready to flop in our pj's), stuffing our faces with delectable tapas, and San Sebastian is an amazing city - it's romantic, full of history, a gastronomic delight, superbly toddler friendly, and moderately warm for mid November in the Northern hemisphere. I was delighted this evening, when we walked into the bakery and the Littlest Hobo chanted Ola with the rest of us without a second thought, but that's only one very small step. But I think, if I'm truly honest, we are a little embarrassed by our naivety, by our lack of preparation and ignorance that makes me feel somewhat green around the gills at this travel business, when in reality it's something that we've been doing for years, just by a different name, because it wasn't a permanent, everyday state. I feel that we should have known better, and now it's too late to do much about it. Our best option is to tuck it under our wings as a lesson learnt for next time, and go and drown our embarrassment and celebrate our next challenge, whatever it may be, in a glass or two of Spain's finest Rioja. Ole!