After bidding farewell to Bruce Springstein and our Springstein-loving friends, our next visitors arrived just a few days later. Andrew and Karen, with whom we stayed on our trip to Washington, D.C. last year, came for a few days before heading to see the Rioja region and other parts of the Basque country on their own. Then, Andrew returned alone to further explore with us. Note that all of the photos except one are Andrew's, as he is an excellent photographer, and this gave Shana a welcome break from having to play that role.
As always, we were happy to show off San Sebastian, and especially its amazing food options. A pintxos crawl gave us a chance to not only show off the food, but also our ability to correctly pour Basque cider and Txaikoli, the local white wine.
Given how much we love hiking from Zarautz to Getaria for lunch, we repeated that day, which worked out great because we got to try a fish that we had never even heard of before. Although it was very hot, the hike over, part of which runs along the Camino de Santiago, was still beautiful.
Our table had a great view of the beach, which was very crowded given that we were there on a Sunday. In fact, we had never seen Getaria so busy.
Andrew's return allowed us to show off some of the "secondary" sights that we don't get to show to people who come for a shorter visit. First, we went to San Jean de Luz in France for a bit of French culture, history, and food. It was a beautiful day, and we sipped wine while we watched an orchestra perform on the main square (ironically performing two songs by Frankie Goes to Hollywood, a classic US 80's band) before walking around the city and having lunch overlooking the beach in the neighboring town of Ciboure.
Of course, given the extra time, we had to take Andrew to our favorite place in San Sebastian, the Chilida sculpture El Peine del Viento (The Comb of the Wind). The day we visited was a bit overcast and stormy, but in some ways that improves the spot because it is fun to watch the waves crashing among the rocks and the sculpture.
On Andrew's last day, we did another of our favorite things, a boat tour from Zumaia to see/learn about Flysch. It was a beautiful day although the sea was pretty rough making for a fun ride along the cliffs.
After the boat, we had time before lunch to walk down to the main beach, and through a bit of the Geopark to get a closer view of the flysch.
Finally, we almost never see the sunset in San Sebastian during the summer because it does not occur until almost 10:00 pm (thanks Franco!) and we are rarely out that late. But we did see one or two while Andrew and Karen were here, and Andrew went out alone to get photos of others. Here are just two of the best.
Note the difference in the number of people on the beach. On a clear, weekend night, the beach is still crowded at 10 pm, while on a more blustery, weeknight it is virtually empty.
More to come from summer in San Sebastian soon.
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