Continued......
Sunday 20th March
Paris - San Sebastian
Off to San Sebastian which is renowned as the food capital of Spain. Not been before but passed it a few times in the car on various trips backwards and forwards to our apartment. Highly recommended by a number of friends so we were looking forward to our visit.
TGV train on time, shared a seating table with a French lady and her granddaughter off back to Bordeaux. Managed a reasonable conversation for a while but must have bored them as they cleared off to the bar!!!
Decent train service but no food or drinks even in 1st class! Good seats though,
Train terminated at Irun which is just inside Spain so had to catch a local train to San Sebastian, only just as not much time between and security lady had a moan about the size and weight of Janet's case (all the shopping in Paris!!!)
Got to San Sebastian (14minutes) and fought our way off the train as Spanish not renowned for patience and they are trying to get on as we are getting off!! Only to realise we had left our rucksacks on the train !! So had to fight my way through and only just got off before doors closed , got some funny looks!! I blame Mrs Scott for not checking !!!
Taxi to rather nice hotel, small ish but beautifully decorated, can be found in Small Hotels of the World - Villa Soro. Only negative is a bit out of the town (20 minute walk) but still well worth it.
Evening
Using the excellent map and list of recommended Tapas Bars we wandered into the town. Found 1st one easily which was excellent. Next 2 across the road were closed as Sunday night!!
Went looking for the 4th in that part of town (Gros) but could not find the street, but spotted another two on a corner only to find the one we picked was the 4th on the list.
Lady we shared a table pointed it out to us - dohhhhhh!! Nice lady who spoke great English.
All in all excellent Tapas Bars and our kind of eating!!
Back to hotel for a nightcap that turned into two as putting the world to rights - too boring a conversation to repeat, plus can not remember too much as had far to much to drink. Proved when the present Mrs Scott got out of bed after 20 minutes to rush to the bathroom to be .......... (too much detail)!!!!
Monday 21st March
Excellent breakfast then off into town sightseeing and shopping as we needed an extra bag to take the strain off the suitcases after Paris shopping!!!
Lovely city, much larger than we thought and very clean except for graffiti. What is it about these people, great shame as most of it not particularly artistic or well done.
Huge cathedral in centre, well worth a visit.
Beautiful beaches in the bays separated by a nice rocky headland.
Lunchtime came so more Tapas bars, another 2 off the list, both excellent!!
After a long lunch then more shopping, the present Mrs Scott won again, I managed a jacket, she managed a complete outfit!!! Good job we got a half decent bag!!
Decided to try some more Tapas bars on way back to the hotel so that was dinner taken care off!!
Fell asleep watching some old Harry Potter video!!!
Monday 22nd March
Up early as train to Madrid at 8.44 so quick pack up and breakfast before cab to station with additional bag as still heavy cases. How on earth we are going to get this lot back to UK on a plane I have still to work out and we still have Madrid to do!!!!
San Sebastian - highly recommended, but stay a week as very interesting place and loads of Tapas bars and Restaurants, great beaches for the summer. definitely be back!
Train on time to Madrid.......
To be continued............
That brought back great memories of our holiday last year. I hadn't noticed that there was no food or drink in first class. We'd loaded up in Paris before catching the train.
ReplyDeleteIn 2009 we took the Ave from Madrid to Seville, first class, and that included a three course lunch, wine and a glass of sherry when we got on board. Our only complaint was that the train got us to Seville too quickly and we had to get off! I think that cost us 60 something euros each, for a 535 km journey (just over 2.5 hours).
We had exactly the same problem getting off the local train from Irun to San Sebastian. Mary had to stand with her arms outstretched in the door way to make space for me to stagger off behind her with the cases.
That was the end of May last year, and San Sebastian was absolutely perfect. We loved the city and will definitely be back for longer.