Slightly disappointed to be leaving and not that happy about the weight of our 9 bottles of champagne to carry, we jumped on a train to Bordeaux. The idea was just to rent a car at the train station and continue our trip to San Sebastian, right on the border of France and Spain on the west coast.
A couple of hours later and we reached San Sebastian, on a mildly warm Wednesday afternoon. The sun was shining and we happily found out that our Airbnb place was right in front of the beach. A full balcony on the water front, with a nice and comfy bed, clean, it even had a lift! YAY!!! We got some very useful hints and tips from the owner and were quickly out of there, seeking our Spanish adventures!
The thing to do in San sebastian is go to the old town and hop from bar to bar. At each bar you generally have one drink - Txakoli! - and eat one of the dozens of different "pintxos" (pronounced pin-chos). They're like tapas, but although cheap, they're not for free. A bit like canapes, only a lot more fun and more generous. Like 'finger food', but with a lot more character. It's commonly a small slice of fresh bread with something awesome on top: deliciously seasoned cod fish with an olive, goats cheese seasoned with something indescribable, honey and olive oil, bonito (like a white tuna) and anchovies; an aromatic green chilli that doesn't burn, combined with olives and anchovies, and the list goes on. Anchovies here are to die for - I never liked anchovies!! But now I know that I never liked them because I never tried the good ones!
Anyway. I starred on google maps the different little bars we went to in San Sebastian. The stars also include the bars we went to on our second day in SS, with the walking food tour Paul booked for us. This was very VERY cool. Paul found this guy on trip advisor, Keith. He's an American married to a lady from San Sebastian, has been living there for years and he learned everything he knows from his Father in law, who used to transport and deliver supplies for the different bars and restaurants around town. It was great to do the tour 'cause it allowed us to learn a bit about the history of the city, the pintxos culture and of course, to get the tips of the single most amazing pintxo in each bar. They have this thing there, that generally each bar has their 'specialty', but they won't tell you which one that is. It's all word of mouth.
The food tour was from 12pm-3pm. The group that did the tour with us was a great bunch of young adults, all party animals! None of us thought we were done at 3pm… Paul and I had learned from our landlord that on Thursdays from 7pm there's this part of town where the bars serve 1drink+1pintxo for under 3 Euro. We had decided we wanted to check it out, so we proposed to the crew and they were all in. Thing was, we had about 4 hours to kill before the pintxo extravaganza started. That's when Paul had the brilliant idea of inviting everyone to our Airbnb place: let's crack those bottled of champagne and have a champagne party!! :D I was all in (we were never gonna be able to finish all that champagne before boarding on the plane to italy within a few days, and champagne is a lot more fun when shared!)!
This was an awesome party. The guys bought some extra booze (we were 12 after all) and some nibbles. Those 4h went by pretty fast, it was a lot of fun and thankfully no major 'damage' to the apartment. At 7 we headed to the pintxo-extravaganza neighbourhood. I was the 'interpreter' at the bars, the only one who could speak a little Spanglish and Portunhol. It worked, somehow we were all fed and drunk by the third of fourth bar (maybe 5th? Who's counting!). Now to cut a long drunken story short, Katie ended up swimming in the ocean with strangers at midnight. Nothing else to be said!!!!
Next morning I was no.. body.. We wanted to have stayed in SS another night, but we had already booked the place in Bordeaux, so we had to go :(
Bordeaux, on arrive!