A Guide to San Sebastian, Spain

Matt and I heard so many great things about San Sebastian before we booked our trip to Basque Country, that we were so thrilled when we got to this leg of our European journey! We arrived into San Sebastian by bus from Biarritz and checked into the Legazpi Doce, a modern boutique hotel in the heart of the city. From there, we were about 2 minutes walk to Old Town, a 5 minute walk to La Concha, and a 10 minute walk to Playa Zurriola. The hotel staff provided us with a great list of bars and restaurants serving pintxos. If you haven't heard of pintxos, they are essentially small finger food items arranged in a buffet style on the bar. You take a plate and are charged for the individual items you eat, each item is around 2-4 euros. The hotel staff advised us to have 1-2 pintxos at each bar, then move from bar to bar to taste the variety of food at each location. We gladly took their advice and started bar hoping, sampling food from the various pintxos bars with a little sangria here and there - it was incredible! Light sampling allowed us to cover a larger range of the restaurants in Old Town, making it a great way to discover the city.

Monte Igueldo offers the best views of La Concha beach, Old Town, and the Bay of Biscay.

There are two main beaches to visit in San Sebastian:

La Concha is named after its "conch" shape and is located on the edge of Old Town. This beach is protected, making it a better location to tan or swim. Surfing is best saved for Playa Zurriola.
Playa Zurriola is located across the river from Old Town and gets big waves. Since Matt is an avid surfer, he brought his short wetsuit with him and rented a surfboard at Pukas Surf Shop. For any surfers headed to San Sebastian, this shop offers a large selection of brand name surfboards available for rent, with wetsuits and shower/locker room all included in the rental fee.