Three days in San Sebastián: the best eating in Spain, and most of it standing up

Two nights on the Basque coast: a shell shaped bay with a beach in the middle of town, an old town of pintxos counters, a fortress hill above it and a coastal path east to the lighthouses.

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Length
3 days, 2 nights
Where you stay
San Sebastián
Places
7 across 3 days
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San Sebastián is a resort that turned into a food capital and kept the resort. The bay of La Concha is a near circle of sand with an island in the middle of it and a promenade railing so recognisable that the city sells it as jewellery. Behind the beach the Parte Vieja is a grid of narrow streets where the ground floor of nearly every building is a bar, and each bar has its counter covered in small plates by eight in the evening.

That combination is why people come back. You swim in the morning, walk a headland at lunchtime and eat standing up all evening, moving bar to bar because that is how it is done here: one thing, one glass, next place. The city has three restaurants at the top of the Michelin scale and several hundred bars where dinner costs fifteen euros, and the second group is the reason to book the trip.

It is also, oddly, a nineteenth century city. The old town looks medieval and is not: British and Portuguese troops sacked and burned the place in 1813 after the siege, and almost everything you see went up afterwards, when the Spanish court started spending its summers here.

Highlights

  • A bay shaped like a shell, with a swimming island in the middle and a promenade all the way round
  • Counters loaded with pintxos, paid for on the honour system and eaten in four different bars
  • A hill fort over the old town with a twelve metre Christ standing on the roof of it
  • Golden painted canvases by Josep Maria Sert filling the church of a Dominican convent
  • A coast path east over the cliffs to a lighthouse above the mouth of a working port

Where to stay

San Sebastián, two nights

Sleep in the Parte Vieja if you want to fall out of a bar into bed, or in Gros across the river if you want the surf beach and a quieter street. The centre, between the cathedral and the bay, is the compromise and has the widest choice of rooms.

Two nights is enough for the old town, the hill and one long walk. If eating is the reason for the trip, a third night pays for itself in bars.

Day by day

Day 1 in San Sebastián

The Parte Vieja, Santa María and the first bars

Get to the old town in the late afternoon, which is when it wakes up. It is eight streets deep, easy to circle, and the two churches at either end of it anchor everything else.

The Plaza de la Constitución is the centre of it: an arcaded square with numbers painted above every balcony window, from the years when the square was the bullring and the flats around it were the seats. It is the meeting point for the whole city, and in January it is where the drumming starts.

Then eat. Start early, about eight, and plan on three or four bars rather than one, taking whatever the place is known for and moving on.

  1. 17:00

    Plaza de la Constitución

    Historic

    The old town square, arcaded on all four sides, with numbered balconies left over from its bullfighting days. Cafes underneath, and the best place to start the evening.

  2. 18:00

    Santa María del Coro

    Religious

    A heavy baroque front with Saint Sebastian himself over the door, at the top of the old town's main street. Stand with your back to it and the view runs straight down the street to the cathedral spire.

  3. 20:00

    Ganbara

    Eat

    A counter famous for one thing, wild mushrooms with an egg yolk on top, and a queue of people who know it. Order at the bar, eat standing, then walk two doors on.

With more time: The Iglesia San Vicente at the other end of the old town is the oldest building in the city, and it is plain gothic and takes ten minutes. If the counters are three deep, the streets in Gros over the bridge have the newer and more inventive bars and half the crowd.

Day 2 in San Sebastián

San Telmo, Monte Urgull, La Concha and the Kursaal

Start at the San Telmo museum, in a sixteenth century Dominican convent at the foot of the hill with a perforated metal extension grafted onto it. The collection is Basque history and Basque art, and the reason to go is the old church, whose walls Josep Maria Sert covered with enormous canvases in gold and grey.

From behind the museum a path climbs Monte Urgull, twenty minutes of switchbacks under the trees to the castle at the top and a statue of Christ that watches the bay. The little museum inside the walls tells the city's own story, including the fire of 1813.

Come down for the beach. La Concha runs a kilometre and a half from the port to Ondarreta, the sand is flat, the water is calm because the island shelters it, and swimming here in the middle of a city is the thing everybody remembers about San Sebastián. Walk the promenade to the end and back, then cross the river in the evening for the Kursaal, two glass cubes on the sand that light up from inside after dark.

  1. 09:30

    San Telmo Museum

    Religious

    Basque history downstairs, Basque painting on the top floor, and the Sert canvases in the old convent church, which are worth the ticket on their own.

  2. 12:00

    Castillo de la Mota

    Historic

    The fort on top of Monte Urgull, with a history museum in the barracks, gun batteries in the walls and the whole bay laid out below. The climb is short and shaded; the view is the best in the city.

  3. 19:00

    Palacio de Congresos y Auditorio Kursaal

    Religious

    Rafael Moneo's pair of translucent cubes on the Zurriola beach, opened in 1999 and home to the film festival every September. Concerts, a bar and the best modern building on this coast.

With more time: With more time, the funicular at the far end of the bay climbs Monte Igueldo to an old fashioned fairground and the view of the bay that appears on every postcard. It runs from 1912 and is worth riding for the carriages alone.

Day 3 in San Sebastián

Up Ulia, and the cathedral on the way out

The coast east of the city is the part visitors miss. From the end of the Zurriola beach in Gros, a path climbs onto Monte Ulia through pines and gorse and comes out on cliffs above the sea, with the whole bay behind you and the Basque coast running away in front.

Turn back after an hour if you have a train. If you do not, the path keeps going along the cliffs towards the lighthouses above the mouth of Pasaia, which is a working port hidden in a rock cleft.

Walk back down into the centre for the last hour. The cathedral, Buen Pastor, is neo gothic, built in the 1890s when the city was booming, and its spire is still the tallest thing here. It sits five minutes from the station.

  1. 09:15

    Mount Ulia

    Nature

    The hill east of the city, up from Gros through the trees to a plateau of cliff paths and viewpoints. Forty minutes up, and almost nobody on it.

  2. 12:00

    Artzain Onaren Katedrala

    Religious

    The city's cathedral, finished in 1897 out of local sandstone with a spire over seventy metres tall. Plain and grey inside, and built on the axis that runs back through the old town to Santa María.

With more time: The longer version of this walk carries on to the Faro de la Plata, the lighthouse on the headland over Pasaia, and drops into the port village of Pasai Donibene, where a rowing boat ferries you across the channel and a bus brings you back. Allow half a day.

Before you go

Getting in

Biarritz airport is thirty five kilometres away over the French border, with a bus link, and Bilbao is an hour and a half by coach and has far more flights. San Sebastián's own airport at Hondarribia is small and mostly serves Madrid and Barcelona.

From France, trains run to Hendaye and you change onto the Euskotren narrow gauge for the last half hour along the coast. From Madrid there are direct trains of five to six hours into the Renfe station by the Maria Cristina bridge. From Bilbao, take the Pesa coach rather than the Euskotren: an hour and a quarter against nearly three.

The bus and train stations are both about ten minutes' walk from the old town, on the far side of the river.

Getting around

Walk. The old town, the beach, the museums and the two hills are all within two kilometres, and the seafront promenade connects most of them.

The city has a good bike hire scheme and flat cycle lanes along both rivers and the bay, which is the pleasant way to reach Gros or the Ondarreta end of the beach. Taxis pick up only at ranks or by phone, so do not stand at the kerb waving.

When to go

June and September are the sweet spot: warm enough to swim, without August's queue at every counter. This coast is green because it rains, and it can rain in any month, so bring a jacket even in summer.

Two dates worth planning around. The film festival takes over the last ten days or so of September and fills every room in the city. The Tamborrada is on 20 January, when the whole city drums for twenty four hours straight, and it is one of the great Spanish festivals precisely because it is not staged for anybody's benefit.

Eating

The rule for pintxos: one or two per bar, then leave. The cold ones sit on the counter and you help yourself with a plate; the good ones are on a chalkboard behind the bar and come out hot. Say what you had when you pay.

Order a zurito, a small beer, or txakoli, the slightly fizzy local white poured from a height. Then ask for a gilda, the olive, anchovy and pickled pepper on a stick that was the original pintxo and is named after a Rita Hayworth film.

For a sit down meal, the city's speciality is fish cooked plainly: turbot on the grill, spider crab, salt cod. Between January and April the cider houses in the villages behind town serve set meals with the cider straight from the barrel, and a bus goes there.

Two nights is the minimum here and three is better, because every extra evening is another five bars and the queue moves faster on a Tuesday.

Swim in the morning, climb the hill before lunch, eat standing up until midnight, and repeat. There is not much more to San Sebastián than that, and there does not need to be.

Or make it a longer trip

These trips pass through here on the way somewhere else.

Make it your trip

Every stop, day and place here lands in your account as an editable trip. Move the days around, swap a city, add your own bookings and costs, and share it with whoever is coming.

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Common questions

Is San Sebastián expensive?
Rooms are, particularly in August and during the film festival, and they are the thing to book first. Eating is not: a pintxo is two or three euros and four bars comes to less than a restaurant. The famous kitchens are a different budget entirely and need booking months ahead.
How do pintxos actually work?
Walk in, take a plate if there are cold ones on the counter, or order the hot ones listed on the board. Keep count of what you have had and tell the barman when you leave. One or two per bar, then move on, and eat standing: sitting down at a table is a different, slower and pricier meal.
Can I swim, and when?
Yes, from roughly June to September, and La Concha is sheltered enough for it to be pleasant. Zurriola on the Gros side has the waves and the surf schools; Ondarreta at the west end is the quietest stretch.
Is it worth combining with Bilbao?
Very much so, and the coach between them takes about an hour and a quarter. They are unalike: Bilbao is bigger, industrial and has the Guggenheim, this is a resort with better food. Two nights each is a good week.
What about a day trip?
Hondarribia, a walled fishing town on the French border, half an hour away, with a rowing boat crossing to Hendaye. Or the cider houses at Astigarraga between January and April, where the meal is fixed, the cider is free from the barrel and you pour it yourself.
Can I copy this itinerary and change it?
Yes. Copy it, add a beach afternoon, and swap the bars for whichever ones somebody has recommended to you.