Donostia
From the Navarrese plateau to the Cantabrian Sea in under an hour
You leave Ttipiaenea after breakfast. The motorway crosses the Pamplona basin, climbs slowly towards Belate and at some point, bend after bend, the green changes shade: no longer the dry green of the Navarrese plateau but the bright green of the Basque Country, the green that means the Cantabrian Sea is near.
Fifty-five minutes after leaving home, the car rounds one last hill and La Concha bay appears whole, all at once, blue in the morning light. Some people have lived in Pamplona for years and still let out a gasp the first time they see it. They are not exaggerating.
The maze with the best bar counters in the world
You park and walk into the Old Town. The streets are narrow, the buildings tall and the bars open from nine in the morning with counters full of freshly made pintxos. There is no wrong choice: in the Old Town it is almost impossible to eat badly.
Pescadería street, 31 de Agosto street and the Constitución square with its numbered balconies —they were the boxes for watching bullfights— form a maze that will keep you longer than you think. The little ones stand wide-eyed at the pintxo counters. Couples get lost on purpose.
At the far end of the Old Town, the Basilica of Santa María del Coro closes the view with its baroque façade. You need not go in, though it is worth it: one of those interiors you remember even if you are not especially religious.
Boats that smell of the real sea
The port of San Sebastián lies at the foot of Mount Urgull, at the eastern end of the bay. There are still working fishing boats, gulls that ask no permission and a fish market where, first thing in the morning, the fishermen unload what the Cantabrian has given them.
From the promenade around the port, the Christ on Mount Urgull stands out against the sky. To the left, La Concha stretches in a perfect semicircle, with Santa Clara island in the middle like a floating dot in the blue. Yes, it is the postcard. But standing there living it is something else.
If the weather allows —and in San Sebastián it allows more often than the fame of Basque rain would suggest— the little ones will want to go down to La Concha beach. Bring a change of clothes and plenty of time.
The museum where children don't want to leave
In the Miramón Technology Park, ten minutes from the centre, is the San Sebastián Science Museum: the Eureka! Zientzia Museoa. Two hundred interactive installations across three floors on physics, biology, mathematics and technology. The kind of museum where you can touch everything.
The children take twenty minutes to enter full exploration mode and don't come out until you drag them. The adults too. There are experiments with light, with sound, with the human body, with the universe. And there is a planetarium —sessions every hour— where they recline you in the chair, you switch off your phone and the Navarrese sky falls on you in four dimensions.
If you come with little ones, the Eureka! turns the day in San Sebastián into something they will remember for weeks. And if not, it does too.
How to get there from Ttipiaenea
- Distance85 km · 55 min via AP-15 + AP-1
- ParkingUnderground car park at Zurriola or the Kursaal
- Old TownOn foot from the car park · 5 min
- PortPaseo del Muelle · next to the Old Town
- Eureka!Paseo Mikeletegi 43 · Miramón Park · 10 min by car from the centre
- Eureka! hoursTue–Sun 10:00–20:00 · Closed Mondays
- Eureka! tickets~€14 adults · ~€9 children · Planetarium separate
