Semana Santa Part 2: San Sebastián/Donostia
Apologies! I had intended to continue my Semana Santa series sooner, (say that three times fast, haha) but I got busy studying for my CIEE final exam, and with several trips over the last few weeks. However, I’m now down one class (my Psychology of Learning a Second Language class), so I can focus on finishing my three University of Seville classes. I can also focus on travel! I’m going to be doing a lot of traveling during the next few weeks, but I think it’s going to be really fun and totally worth the effort.
So, back to Semana Santa! After spending Sunday and Monday in Seville, I spent most of Tuesday taking various trains to get up to the north of Spain. I took the AVE (high-speed train) from Seville to Madrid, then the Cercanías (local/suburb train) from the Madrid Atocha Station to the Madrid Chamartín station (which was tricky and I didn’t have very much time, but I managed!!), and finally from Madrid Chamartín to San Sebastián!
San Sebastián, also known by its Basque name, Donostia, is located on the northeastern coast of Spain, off the Bay of Biscay. It’s only about 12 miles from the French border, so you actually see signs pointing you in the direction of France, which I found to be pretty funny. (Like, “France? Oh, it’s that way. Just over there.”) I initially hadn’t planned on going to San Sebastián, but when I started telling Spaniards that I wanted to take a trip up north, everyone told me I had to go to San Sebastián. So I started researching and figured it was worth a portion of my Semana Santa adventure. And it definitely was! It ended up being one of my favorite cities I visited. For starters, it’s beautiful. There are beautiful beaches very close to the city, with mountains on either side. It has a wonderful charm and was a great introduction to Basque culture for me.
That leads me to another topic: Basque Country. País Vasco/Euskadi is one of Spain’s autonomous regions (kind of like US states). There are a few autonomous regions in Spain that have their own cultural/linguistic roots, and throughout history have had various levels of autonomy/independence. Basque Country is one of them. There are some people who believe that Basque Country should be independent from Spain. While the Basque independence movement has since “calmed down”, in the 1970s it was strong enough that there was a terrorist group, called ETA (“Euskadi Ta Askatasuna”, or “Basque Homeland and Freedom”) that posed a threat and whose goal was independence for the Basque Country and Navarre autonomous communities in Spain, as well as the neighboring Northern Basque Country in France. As I said, the Basque independence movement isn’t as fiery today (especially compared to the current movement in Catalonia! More on that in my post about my trip to Barcelona.) However, there is still a very strong sense of attachment to Basque culture, the Basque language, and the Basque national identity. This makes for a very different feel in the north of Spain, which I found to be very interesting. The Basque language is co-official with Spanish in Basque Country, and is very fascinating in and of itself. I looked it up, and the technical term to describe it is a “language isolate”, as in, there are no known languages that are connected to the Basque language! As someone who knows nothing about it, I noticed that it includes a lot of the letter “X” and has a lot of syllables, haha. I don’t know if I heard anyone speak in Basque, but I read it all over the place. All of the street signs have the Spanish and Basque names included, and pretty much all other signage did, as well.
Here’s a video from The Guardian about Basque culture, which includes some songs spoken in the Basque language:
I really enjoyed my time in San Sebastián. I arrived late Tuesday night, so I just went straight to my hostel, a place called “Roger’s House”, haha, and went to bed. The next day, I got up and started exploring. I had some breakfast at a cute café called “Kafebat?”, then went to see the Cathedral del Buen Pastor and other sights in the historic center. (In a nutshell: the Iglesia de San Vicente, Plaza de la Constitución, Plaza de Gipuzkoa, Plaza de Bilbao, Puente de María Cristina, the Río Urumea, the Teatro Victoria Eugenia, the Jardines de Alderdi Eder, the Ayuntamiento, the Museo San Telmo, and the Iglesia de Santa María). I also crossed the Puente Kursaal into the Gros neighborhood and saw the Kursaal Building, the Parroquia de San Ignacio, and the Plaza de Cataluña.
On the east side of the Bahía de la Concha, which the city is built around, is Monte Urgull. At the top of the mountain is a statue of Jesus, called El Monumento al Corazon de Jesús. I walked up the mountain, which was a bit of a hike, but not so strenuous that I wished I was wearing tennis shoes. There were amazing views from the top, as well as from several old military outposts spread around the rest of the mountain. Along with the monument, there’s also a museum and even a chapel.
For lunch, I went to a pintxos (or, pinchos, pronounced “peench-ohs”) bar. Pintxos are like tapas, small/snack-sized portions of food, but the way they’re served is different. They’re all placed on the bar, and you grab a plate and select what you want. Everything is skewered with a small stick, and at some restaurants, this is how you pay the bill: the number of sticks is the number of pintxos you had, so you pay accordingly. Some places even have different colored sticks to signify different prices for different food items.
After a lot of exploring on the eastern side of town, I walked around the bay along the beach to the other side. I walked past the Playa de Ondarreta and the Palacio Miramar, as well as some other beautiful buildings. While San Sebastián is a beach town, it’s a more “urban” beach town, with some very classy 19th and 20th-century architecture.
I then took the funicular railway to go up Monte Igeldo, the mountain opposite the bay of Monte Urgull. This was a great way to get even better views of the city and surrounding area. However, it was kind of funny because the funicular only exists because there’s an old (rather cheesy/tacky) amusement park at the top of the mountain. This was made even funnier because when I was there, it was the park’s off season, so only a few carnival games were open, as well as the (way overpriced) restaurant. There were plenty of other people like me who were only there for the views, but it was a very strange situation, haha.
I took the railway back down the mountain, and then walked all the way to the western side of the mouth of the bay. This area is popular because of an outdoor sculpture, called El Peine del Viento (“The Comb of the Wind“). Created by artist Eduardo Chillida, the name of the sculpture has to do with its location. There’s a lot of wind coming off the Bay of Biscay into the smaller Bahía de la Concha, so as the wind enters the bay, it’s “combed” by the sculpture. It’s a very cute idea and a beautiful, picturesque sight, and probably one of my favorite things about San Sebastián.
As I walked back around the bay to head to my hostel, I went down to the beach so I could put my feet in the water. My shoes had a little bit of sand in them for the rest of the trip, but it was worth it. I had a little bit more time before I needed to be at my hostel to grab my luggage before catching the bus to Bilbao, so I stopped at a cute looking crêpe restaurant called Québec Café Crepería. I had a Nutella crêpe and a strawberry smoothie, and overheard the guy who runs the restaurant speak to other customers in Spanish, French, and English! It turns out he’s from Quebec, but has been living in Spain for several years. (That was one of my favorite parts of traveling solo: getting to eavesdrop and people-watch!) I then grabbed my luggage from the hostel, and walked to the bus station to board the bus for Bilbao!
Overall, San Sebastián/Donostia was an amazing place. It had a wonderful charm and personality that I can’t quite put my finger on. It was beautiful to look at and fun to explore. While it may not have as much of a name for us Americans, it has a name among Spaniards for a reason. I’m usually not a beach person, but I might actually consider living in a beachy city if it was like this. I guess I’d compare it to an east coast city in the US, in that it’s different from Florida coastal towns or places on the west coast. And I’m not the only one who has fallen in love with San Sebastián! It’s been named the 2016 “European Capital of Culture”. I hadn’t heard of this distinction before researching San Sebastián, but apparently every year (since 1985) the European Union designates a city as the “Capital of Culture”. This is meant to highlight the “richness and diversity of European cultures and [raise] awareness of their common history and values” (thanks, Wikipedia!). For example, the 2014 cities are Riga, Latvia, and Umeå, Sweden. Past Spanish cities to have been selected were Madrid (1992), Santiago de Compostela (2000), and Salamanca (2002). This is often a major tourism boost for the selected cities, and I think it’s a neat idea since it draws attention to unique places around the European continent! I think it also helps places become more tourist-friendly. San Sebastián had really helpful maps and signage for tourists, which is always appreciated!
Next blog post: Bilbao!
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