Wednesday 13 January 2016

Wednesday 13 January - San Sebastian

Where’s Colin? He’s still exactly where he was yesterday.

By luck, we hit on the perfect day for exploring San Sebastian. With the rest of the week having been (or is forecast to be) wet, today was fine, with lots of sun first thing,and with tremendous air clarity. The latter feature of the day was particularly welcomed from the vantage point of Monte Urgell, a small pimple which juts out into the sea just beyond the old town of San Sebastian.

Here’s how the day went:

After looking over to Monte Urgell…


…we surmised that the man writing ‘IBI=+P’ very neatly all over the beach was making some political statement…


…but we couldn’t say for sure what it was about, whereas Mick did understand this bronze sculpture of Don Quixote, even if he couldn’t quite recall his sidekick’s name:


On this fine day workmen were busy pollarding the trees lining the promenade, some of which looked quite old (the trees; not the workmen), with their split trunks being held together by ties. I was particularly taken with the tool they were using for the purpose: pneumatic secateurs.


After a walk along the harbour wall, into the old town we went, which is built on a very neat grid system after having been razed to the ground by a fire (by the English & Portuguese) in 1813.

Through the square we went…

…past the basilica…

…and into a bar to sample some pintxos (or tapas). There was much more than this snap suggests:


Suitably fuelled, a circuit of Monte Urgell warmed us up for an ascent to the castle which sits at the top, on top of which sits a rather large statue:


The air clarity gave us exceptional views, including snowy peaks in the distance, and I even caught Mick in a snap:


Lots and lots of pathways cover this little hill, with plenty of signage giving the names of the various batteries and other features.


Descending via the English Cemetery (from some ructions in the 1830s, the details of which I didn’t note), it was back into the town for another bit of a wander before calling it a day. We did that at about the right time as about half an hour after getting back to Colin the rain, forecast for this evening, came early

3 comments:

  1. Mick and Gayle the tourists, love it!

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  2. Gosh Mick and Gayle in tourist mode and dodging the weather back in the UK!!

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  3. Yep - a surprising amount of culture, although we have been clocking up a surprising amount of (city based) walking miles too.

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