Tapas and Beaches in San Sebastian (1st Sep - 8th Sep 07)

We had a nice easy 50km ride from Biaritz in France to San Sebastian in Spain. The route took us along the coast and through some lovely coastal towns, most with large medieval forts protecting the old town. As usual the border was just a normal road, and we are yet to stop at any border crossing in Europe. One thing about borders as you can always tell which side has the cheapest petrol as there are usually a swarm of petrol stations on that side of the border. While stopping at one such station to fill our camping stove bottle with petrol (our stove runs on any flammable liquid....cool) nat suddenly got really excited and next thing a guy was riding past the petrol station in full Nude.....must have just come from one of the many spainish nudist beaches.

We arrived in San Sebastian and were blown away by the beauty of the city. It is very small but is always buzzing apart from Siesta time. There is a busy beach and a cute old quarter with narrow alleys packed with Tapas Bars. Tapas here are small and delicious nibbles served on bits of bread. Some examples are

Anchovies, egg and mayonaisse.
Jalepeno pepper stuffed with tuna.
Smoked ham and blue cheese

The whole concept is you go to a bar, have a small (200ml) beer then 1-2 tapas, pay when you leave and repeat the process at the next bar. Each tapa is usually €1.50 but they can easy fill you up.

We ended up staying here for one week as we had a great campsite, which was on top of a 500m high hill!! and we both loved the town.

The San Sebastian Waterfront and Harbour




We did a day trip to Bilbao where the Guggenheim Museum is located. The museum was one of the best art museums we have been too. There were some great modern art exhibitions and our favourite was Richard Seers who makes huge steel spiral shaped walkable shapes.

The Guggneheim Museum in Bilbao



We decided to catch train from San Sebastian to Barcelona and so had to spend a day with the bikes in town while we waited for the night train. It was a saturday and there was a huge dragon boat regatta in the harbour so the town was packed. We were sitting in a large square about to have some gelato when a large crowd of people started running in our direction. Meanwhile large groups of riot police closed in on the sides. As the crowd started chanting (i think the winning boat supporters) the riot police started shooting bean bags in the air. We were caught in the middle and had to make a quick escape running away with our bikes fully loaded. Nat was slowly pushing her bike not thinking that the police would get her!! It was like a football riot. Obviously they take their boating seriously here.

Our adventure for the day didnt stop here. We turned up to the train station with our bikes at 10pm ready for our train. We had checked with the station the day before and they said it was ok to take them as they were. But when the train turned up the conductor refused us, he said NO, NO, while waggling his finger, and cherading that we needed them in bags. He pointed to 2 words that will forever be engrained in our memory....Bicicletta embalada....(packed bicycle). We then realised we didnt have accomodation and our campsite closed at 11pm. We had 30mins to ride 5km across town and up a 5km hill......we set off and got there just in time and were let in by the security guard closing the gates. All accomodation in town was booked so we were very lucky.

Nat managed to argue (as she is so good at...) with the train company to give us 50% of our ticket back. But disheartened we rode back to France and started our 2nd tour de france after filling our selves with Pan au chocolates.