Sabbatical journey: SAN SEBASTIAN, SPAIN: August 9-25, 2010

SAN SEBASTIAN, SPAIN: August 9-25, 2010

Beth and I have been here for 15 glorious days. This is an old fishing port and summer resort on Spain's northeast coast along the Bay of Biscay, only a few miles from France. It took us a while to warm up to the city, we still wre under the spell of Lago di Como. But now we love the city and region, the land of the Basques, the oldest nation in Europe. (The town also has a Basque name: Donostia.)
Here are some of the highlights:

-- OUR PLACE: We have a small two bedroom apartment right in the center of town, within easy walking distance of the magnificent beaches, the restaurants and the "Parte Vieja" the old quarter. Our building is beautiful -- on the outside; our rooms are well equipped.

We're right around the corner from a lovely three block-long pedestrian street which bumps into a cathedral. It's bars, restaurants and cafés are bustling late into the night. Many mornings, we go to one bar in particular to have great coffee and croissants and use the free internet.

-- BEACHES. The city has 3 beaches which are considered the best urban beaches in Europe.
We swam and sunned ourselves at each one.

Rent a lounge chair and chill.

-- FOOD. San Sebastian has more Michelin stars for its restaurants than any other place in Europe. Very popular are the "pintxos" (pinchos), small portion bar food that includes remarkable local seafood.

You can drink them with small glasses of ice cold draft beer "caña," or "txacoli," the local slightly bubbly white wine. These were our lunches and dinners almost every night.

The highlight of our eats -- and possibly the best meal we've had in our lives -- was at Arzak, a Michelin 3-star local restaurant run by Juan Mari Arzak and his daughter Elena. Through the good graces of our friend, food critic extraodinaire Anya von Bremzen, and her partner, Barry Yourgrau, we were first invited to join the family for lunch at the kitchen table in their restaurant.

We returned a week later as their guests for an amazing, lunch graced by one gourmet and artistic masterpiece after another.

--

HIKING. Europe's most popular -- and ancient, more than 1,000 years-old -- pilgrimage trails, winds along the Basque coast through San Sebastian for hundreds of miles to the shrine of Santiago de Compestello, Beth and I spent a strenuous but magnificent afternoon hiking a 7 mile portion of it.

-- DAY TRIPS:

We took a local bus that weaves westward along the hilly coastline to Bilbao, one of Spain's principal ports and home to its steel, mining and ship building industry.

Our goal was a visit to Frank Gehrey's Guggenheim Museum. The structure did not disappoint. Beth and I agree that it's the most amazing contemporary building we've ever seen.

Over the next few days, we take two more bus trips: to an old fishing village, Lekeitio, west of San Sebastian,

then east to Hondarribia, a beautiful old fishing port that lies just across the river from France. It's beautiful, with intact 14th/15th centuries old quarters and great restaurants and views.

-- GRANDE SEMANA: The holiday celebrating the legend of the Assumption of Mary is celebrated with week long festivals in August in San Sebastian and all the neighboring towns.

Free music, basque dancing, parades, nightly fireworks and food sweep up the city. Streets jam packed with locals and tourists.

ONe daily parade was called Giants and of Big Heads. The Big Heads wore costumes topped with massive puppet heads. They chased after children and whacked them with noisy but harmless inflated pigs bladders.