Today we made the short drive from Bilbao to San Sebastian and it became obvious quite quickly that we had entered Basque country. We no longer have any idea what the road signs are saying. After settling in to our chosen campground (this one is described as a campground - but more of that later) we ventured to the nearby bus stop and then into San Sebastian.

Our bus adventure deserves some additional expansion.

  • I have commented before about the unexpectedly low price of public transport in Spain. Well todays ride into San Sebastian about 30 minutes and 20 km and cost only 1.70 Euros each.

  • Getting to the bus stop from out campground was an adventure. The campground, and many businesses, are on the opposite side of a busy highway to the bus stop. But there is no pedestrian crossing of the highway, no bridge, marked crossing, nothing. We (and unfortunate locals who live on the same side as the campground) were required to walk over the highway on a vehicle bridge that also had no side way (foot path) and then once over the highway the adventure continued at the road to the bus stop also had no sidewalk and hence we had to walk on the roadway amongst the impatient Spanish drives.

  • On arriving in the city we asked the bus driver (who it turned out could not speak English) were we could catch the return bus. Realizing he could not explain the location of the return bus stop himself he conscripted a passenger who could speak English, gave that passenger the instructions. And then the conscripted passenger actually led us to the return bus stop. Simply amazing.

We found San Sebastian to be a pretty city, particularly today with beautiful bright sunshine. It has a spectacular harbor a number of lovely sandy beaches and the old city is quaint and picturesque.

Since this was likely to be the last Spanish city we visit we decided that today we should try some Tapas. It seemed like a good choice because again some of our guide books suggested that San Sebastian and the Basque make some of the best Tapas in the country. Unfortunately for Nina because we are on the coast most of the available Tapas are sea food based. Still we stopped at one bar, selected from the display on Tapas on display, collected a glass of wine each and munched away. The Tapas were enjoyable and the wine predictable. Half an hour after our little meal the wine was having its expected effect and we were both ready for sleep.

The campground we chose was called Oliden. It proved more that a bit tricky to find as the entrance is a very small little lane immediately after a bridge, a laneway not shown on most maps. It seemed like almost all the guests were permanent residents with many moldy tents and trailers (caravans) in evidence. We concluded from a number of tell-tales that this place did not see many tourists.