San Sebastian or bust!

While I was in Biarritz, I took a short day trip to San Sebastian in Spain.  Well, short because I was only there for about 4 hours.  In all honesty, I probably spent that much time traveling to and from as there are no direct routes.  The trek made me question going into the tourism business myself!

For example, to get to San Sebastian you have to take a bus from Biarritz town center to the train station and then take a 30 minute train to Hendaye where you will board a 40 minute commuter rail train to get to San Sebastian. This is the EASIEST way to make the trip.  I found this out after visiting the Tourist Information center in Biarritz and started wondering why there wasn't a direct bus that took tourists from one popular destination to another.  Let me quickly mention that I actually ended up taking the local bus in the wrong direction at the start of my journey.  Once I realized how far I had gone in the wrong direction I just decided to get off at the train station in the next town, Bayonne, and travel from there.  It was a cute town and I guess it wasn't so bad that I had an extra 5 minutes to explore it.  The only downside was that by the time I got to Bayonne the next trip to Hendaye was by bus (90 minutes).  It was quite the scenic drive though, so again, not too bad.  The only part of the day that I wish I could have changed was the amount of time I got to spend in San Sebastian.

Lovely stopover in Bayonne

San Sebastian was beyond beautiful and it was really fun to get to practice some of my high school Spanish!  The city is located at the southern part of the Bay of Biscay which makes for an unbelievably picturesque coastline and a thriving beach resort reputation.  The whole city looks like a postcard and it was the first time I had visited Spain, so I was a bit in love and took pictures of everything.  I loved the architecture and was saddened not to have a chance to taste the world famous pintxos (tapas) as many of the bars were closed for siesta while I was in town.  I did have a chance to visit a Spanish "pasteleria" or pastry shop and tried a yummy cookie the size of my head, filled with orange marmalade and dusted with powdered sugar.  Mmm ... Of course I found sweets in Spain!

What an amazing and beautiful city!  Thank you to all of my friends who suggested going, it was worth any and all of the trouble getting there and I wouldn't trade it for anything!

xx