Taking a break in San Sebastian
This will be a short post. I’ll just talk about some of the travel and some things I found interesting about the city.
Traveling to San Sebastian
This was surprisingly harder than I thought it would be. before the trip, I bought an EURAIL Pass that basically told me I could take a train anywhere in Europe by just showing my pass. This was not the case. I set up my route to San Sebastian using the route planner app and it told me I would need to reserve a seat on the train in order to get there. After numerous attempts to do so, I looked it up online only to find out that the Spanish rail service Renfe had taken down the API the allowed Eurail to reserve seats. This essentially made my pass irrelevant and I had to book a train through trainline for about 37 Euros. Not the end of the world, but I spend a good amount of money on that pass and I’m sad to see it not being used.
This was my first time taking a train and metro in Europe. I didn’t know what to expect, so I left the hostel pretty early in order to make sure I was in the right place at the right time. This was kind of a mistake. I ended up making it through the metro and to the proper train station 3 hours early. Luckily there was a coffee shop and a place to sit, so I waited there and hopped on my train when the time came.
First Impressions
I got there at like 9:00 PM in a downpour. It was cold and rainy which is nothing I’m not used to, but I had to walk about 20 minutes to get to the Surfing Etxea Hostel. It was clear that this city was a major surf city though. Checking in, they made sure to mention that I could rent a board even though it was clear I did not come prepared for surfing.
The Experience
This was not a very social hostel, so I took the opportunity to rest for the duration of my stay. The sickness I’d picked up earlier would not let up though.
Regardless, I was able to walk around a bit and visit some hotspots for Pintxo, a snack which is typically some kind of meat on top of some bread. Similar to tapas, but they have a toothpick stabbed through the middle hence the name Pintxo (spanish for spike). Each morning I would go to a place called [] and get a “Bocadillo Tortilla” (tranlates to Tortilla Sandwich). This stuff was incredible. Like a potato, egg, baguette sandwich full of wonderfull flavor. I would then take it to the beach and eat it while I’d watch the surfers do their thing.
There was also a cathedral there that had some incredible architecture, but I didn’t do a lot of exploring due to my much needed rest.
