I recently had a friend ask me about whether it was worth visiting the Basque Country in Spain as a solo traveller. He had a few days to kill before meeting up with friends and remembered that I had visited San Sebastian a couple of years ago under similar circumstances.
My answer to him was yes, it is definitely worth visiting this area irrespective of whether you are travelling by yourself or with friends! San Sebastian is a beautiful city that hugs a beach and is surrounded by picturesque hills on most sides. In terms of food, the pintxos bars cannot be beat, and was undoubtedly some of the best food I had in my time in Spain. For the uninitiated, pintxos are little tapas like morsels that are laid out on a bench with customers helping themselves and then paid for using the honesty system. That is to say, at the end of the night, you tell the barkeep how much you had during the course of the night and pay accordingly. I also recall a pintxos bar that had different types of meat/seafood/vegetable combinations on skewers which were then basted and roasted to order – brilliant.
I was lucky enough to stay at the David Quinn Hybrid Hotel / Hostel when I was there (only 10 euro per night when I went!) and I would highly recommend this if you are a solo traveller as it is very easy to meet people here. It is more like a share house than a hotel / hostel, and as there are only 12 or so beds, everyone knows each other. The bathrooms are as you would expect in a nice apartment (unlike in some other hostels…) and there 4 beds to a room (with no bunk beds) each with crisp white linen changed regularly. The rooms are spacious, with solid individual safes and LCD TV’s in each room. There is also free internet, a DVD library and all-day breakfast included in the room price. I would give this place a 10/10.
Anyway, all this thinking of San Sebastian made me rummage through my old photo archives to help jog my memory of what the city itself was like. Here are some of the better shots:
San Sebastian Town Hall at Dusk, not far from my accommodation.
The ‘Comb of the Winds’ sculpture by Eduardo Chillida. Had to wait a while to get the spray from the waves in exactly the right spot, but after about 10 or so exposures I was finally happy with the result.
San Sebastian seen through a public sculpture I found walking along the bay. It is at the opposite end of town to the ‘Comb of the winds’ sculpture.
Kursaal Palace is a convention center and auditorium which opened in San Sebastian in 1999. The lighting of the building is capable of changing to different colours and multiple colour schemes. If you are in the area, it is also worth checking out the Guggenheim Museum at the nearby city of Bilbao which is also an archictectural masterpiece.