21 - Basque-ing in the last of our European summer

Eager to leave our traumatic air-bnb “bums in Bordeaux” experience behind us, we got on the road early and headed out of France and back towards Spain where it all began. Not before a stop at Biarritz, which I hadn’t heard of and Melissa assured me was very famous and was not just found by trawling around on google maps. We ate our lunch on the beach and watched the surfers do their thing in unusually choppy waters compared to what we’d been used to.

One of the greatest pleasures Melissa and I have had on our trip has been our ability to find free and convenient parking for Trevor. From trip advisor pundits outraged that anyone would dare drive to Sorrento, or airbnb hosts shocked when we asked for parking arrangements, we’ve always been able to find somewhere either close to our accommodation or close to a train/bus that has taken us to our door. Having expected to pay >€20 per night to park in some places and getting away without any fees or parking tickets, we were sure that our centrally located accommodation in San Seb may end this glorious streak. However, I am happy and proud to report that our host pointed us to one of the few free parking spots on the outskirts of town in Loiola, right on the number 26 bus route, and we celebrated our mini victory of not paying a penny for parking the whole trip.

San Sebastián, and Basque country in general, has been on my list for a while. It is famous for us culinary experiences, from high end Michelin star restaurants to, traveller and unemployed friendly, Pintxos. It is also famous for it’s rather unique language, Basque or Euskara, which is unrelated to any other spoken language today. Melissa found this ‘fact’ so untrue that she spent the next 3 days trying to find words in Basque that looked or sounded like other words we’d picked up and invariably failed and pointed out words that were actually already translated into Spanish. Pintxos, a Basque variation of Spanish tapas and pronounced “Pinchos”, was a very prominent feature of our 3 nights in San Sebastián. If you go into any bar in San Sebastián at virtually any time, not only will there be a variety of delicious craft beers, ciders and wines waiting for you, the bar itself will likely be stacked with that establishments speciality Pintxos. You either pick up a plate to fill, or order from a menu behind the bar, and tuck into an informal yet unbelievably delicious snack.

A common activity is to join a “Pintxos tour” where a local will take you from bar to bar to taste each speciality. From afar, these tours looked incredibly awkward as the groups usually consisted of an older couple, often American, that had very little in common with the young Spanish girl giving the tour. Our recommendation is more of a DIY Pintxos tour. We were fortunate to have been given a map that included some highlighted Pintxos bars of the old town and what dish to order or pick in each place.

Here were our favourites:

Makobe with Txips from A Fuego Negro. A very untraditional Pintxos bar with it’s own interpretation of what the locals have served for years. Each dish had a “Theme”. The Makobe burger (with Kobe beef) was delicious, as was the Rabrownie (beef cheek) that came served to resemble a brownie with whipped cream.
Carrillera from La Cuchara de San Telmo. This bar was unlike any others, and I loved it. It was absolutely rammed and I think just serves the 1 dish, ox-cheek. Great atmosphere and great food.
Brocheta de Gamba from Goiz Argi - very basic Pintxos bar but home to an excellent prawn skewer.
Solomillio a la Plancha from Gandarias. Probably our least favourite setting as it is very popular and has less of a small authentic feel, however the Solomillo (steak) was possibly our favourite dish.
Hamburguesa de Pulpo, Atari. A calmer and more organised bar with the ability to reserve tables, the whole octopus looked amazing but we happily settled for the octopus burgers.

We ate Pintxos all 3 nights we were there. We loved the food and the atmosphere in each place we ate and drank in that had us coming back every night. We were a little aggressive with our alcohol consumption on the first night and learned quickly that a drink in every place may not be the most sustainable way to enjoy our evenings.

A few blogs back, Melissa mentioned my desire to see Spurs play Inter Milan in the Champions League at the San Siro. Having failed to get tickets (luckily, given the nature of the last minute loss), I was sure my luck of watching Spurs play a team from close by was about to change when Spurs took on Barcelona on the 2nd night there. We’d been recommended a great Pintxos bar called “Bar Sport” anyway so finding a spot there to watch sounded like a great idea. I called them and ensured they were showing the game and we arrived a few minutes early to secure our spot. This was the start of a rather unusual evening where we unfortunately could not watch the Spurs game as the bar had not subscribed to the paid for sport channel, however were entertained by a self described “very important man” that came and sat opposite us. While I simultaneously tried to speak the bar staff to work out why a sports bar wasn’t showing sport and googled other places to go to watch it, the older important man tried desperately to make conversation with us and get his friend who was “a very rich man” to buy us more Pintxos and beer. With disappointing little faith in the generosity of and good nature of strangers at a random bar on our penultimate night of the trip, we used the Spurs game as an excuse and headed home to google “83 year old important men from San Sebastián”. Melissa is convinced he was actually Paco Rabanne, despite very little physical resemblance to the scruffy old man we’d spent half an hour talking to.

We both enjoyed our time in San Sebastián. As Melissa would say, “it didn’t disappoint”. We were able to clock another run along the promenade, walk up to the top of the mountain overlooking the bay as we were too cheap to take the funicular before turning round as we were too cheap to pay entry to get the full view. We enjoyed coffee down on the sea front and lay out on the beach, taking in the last few rays of our European summer.

J & M