Into Spain, San Sebastián and Donostia
Zagan the motorhome’s edged into a corner of the official aire in San Sebastian and Donostia (N43.308174, W2.014287). Yup, we’re in Spanish Basque country so everywhere and everything has two names, two for the price of one you might say. The cost to stay here is a meagre €3.25 a night, including the service point. The price doubles in season, but hey, you’re still staying in one of Spain’s most beautiful coastal resort cities for less than £7 a night. The aire is currently RAMMED as it’s a bank holiday here in Spain and the local autocaravanas are out in force. There wasn’t enough space for us all last night, and a few fortunates/unfortunates found themselves parked up on the road (for free). More vans are arriving every few minutes as I type this about 6pm, unable to find room.
The motorhome aire in San Sebastian, packed out in December!
“Erm, Spain’s not in the satnav?” Ju quite correctly spotted the fact the entire Iberian Peninsula’s no longer represented in our TomTom. Hmmm, our minds fly back to Norway where we accidentally deleted the full set of European maps from the thing, kicking off an epic man-woman-versus-godawful-TomTom-software struggle, with a sideshow of SD card corruption mixed in with a tussle of wet-string WiFi. We thought man-woman had prevailed, but in a Da Vinci Code twist at the end, the damned satnav’s won, and we resorted to the CoPilot app we have on the phone to get us here. Which it did well, but for a single (failed, MWOOHAHAHHAH!) attempt to get us driving through a dead-end car park…
Hey, we’ve done some exercise before we set off from Anglet, it’s not all booze, booze, booze. Not entirely anyway.
The road from Anglet down to San Sebastian is a swine. Assuming you’re too tight to take the speedy toll road that is, which I am, and so was Phil. A million roundabouts, inpatient van drivers and an almost-Italian weirdness of road planning all help get those back muscles nice and tight and that eye-twitch-a-twitchin’ as you edge ever closer to the goal without side-swiping an elderly couple making a game attempt to undertake you on a roundabout, or simply driving off a cliff in frustration. We did enjoy one small victory mind you, managing to find the cheapest petrol station in Spain, a few km after the unmarked border from France, called EasyGas and charging a mere €0.98 a litre for diesel. Phil and Jules tried the same place to top up their flagging LPG supplies, finding the name something of a USA-influenced-misnomer, as they didn’t actually sell gas.
When they arrived in the aire a while after us, we compared notes and were most sympathetic when we found their satnav had, for a reason known only to itself, routed them straight through the city rather than using the free dual carriageway bypass ours nipped along. Neither of us managed the feat of getting into any of the shopping centres en route to top up on grub, as fighter-pilot reactions and capacity for G-force were needed to get across the mysterious lane layouts in time. Luckily there’s a number of small supermarkets a short walk towards the city from the aire which have furnished us with 30p-a-pint lager, milk and bread.
You know you’re somewhere warm when the palms are this big
Reports of endless rain from southern Spain and Greece are coming in. We’ve had blue skies for ten days, but for a single grey-sheep of a day when it was only sunny half the time. The air’s short-sleeve warm, at least for me, the locals are of course wrapped up against the Arctic 17ºC cold. You can stay here for up to three days, and we’ve opted to stay a couple of days to soak the place up, and have been into town a couple of times, walking the length of the beautiful curved bay. San Sebastian’s famous for its tapas, called pintxos here, small snacks which are (usually – unless it’s somewhere mega-posh) lined up on plates on the bar, presented as edible artwork to be munched with a glass of wine. Last night we headed out and tried a whole range of delightful (if ethically dubious at times) pinxtos: squid cooked in its own black ink to foie gras with white chocolate sauce, slow roasted beef cheeks and later on a more bulky Spanish omelette sandwich to soak up some of the Rioja! Phil needed that Rioja, I suspect, not just to get over the drive here, but also to fuel is own battle with the heating in his van, which has opted to work when it feels like it.
The calm before the storm. Phil was delighted to have found a shoe.
Mid-storm.
Pintxos! You order ’em, and the waiter either remembers what you had or sticks it in the computer so you can pay at the end.
The pintxos are presented with massive attention to the way they look. They’re delicious too.
The town’s been busy with punters today, folks wandering along the seafront and around the old town. Despite being a festival day, there’s not a huge amount cracking off though. A tent’s been put up with local cider barrels laid on, some ladies sat in another tent hammering away at dough to make flat breads and one local chap was out lettering the beach with what appeared to be an angry political diatribe. Folks stood above, read it, took a photo and wandered off, so maybe he was just advertising his cafe?
All four of us have eyeballed the map of Spain and an imaginary, vague line’s been drawn across it to the Mediterranean coast. Temperatures down there look no better than up here at the moment though, and the draw of Bilboa’s Guggenheim is strong, so it might be a day or three before we start the cross-country jaunt to the inland sea. Watch this space folks, we’ll keep you posted.
Cheers! Jay
Lol. We (unfortunately) are due to get the ferry out of Spain on Saturday – and have been searching for a Vet today, to get our pooch’s Pet Passport stamped. We could not understand why all the Vets we tried were closed – and then the penny dropped that it was a public holiday! Should have guessed: the Aire at the Elephant Park near Santander was pretty full, too, last night – with Spanish vans: nearly all with young families.
Just a little tip re Bilbao. I’m not sure if the aire is free this time of year but when we were there in September, we stayed on a side road next to the sports centre at the top of the hill, about 100m from the funicular. I think it was on Park4night. Free, easy to get to the museum and great views.
43°16’27.2″N 2°55’10.6″W
Hi Guys we were there last December enjoying a very sunny day and loads of Tapas. Great area to be in and if you get near to Santander if you haven’t already done it you must go and see the Elelphants for free. Having just come back from a 4 week jaunt around France in November, deep,y envious of you being away at Xmas. last year between two vans we did the whole but scrambled eggs and Salmon and Chapagne in the morning, Turkey crown and all the rest followed by Xmas pudding complete with sixpence sand Santa even filled four stockings. Our blogs are on http://www.offexploring.com/marylou and add 2015 2016 after marylou for the next years. keep on trucking guys it’s a great life out there. May pick your brains on Norway oh and the Greek Islands if you have done them. Best wishes. Ali and Nick Penryn Cornwall in 14 deg today!!
Have lunch including a bottle of wine at the Guggenheim before looking around.If you’re anything like us it will make for an hilarious afternoon!!
Gawd ! You’ve done it again. Easygas,otherwise known as “Ubas’d” !! We’d filled up a few k down the road and then there it was. Ah,memories. I see
that Bilbao 1 looks closed. Luvved that place even tho it had the goat from hell above the top terrace near the service area. Bloomin thing bleated non stop for 24 hours. Dunno why the owners bothered with the hell bell round its neck. Don’t forget El Globo.
GlorYa x
You lucky, lucky, people. Looks like you’re in a ‘sun pocket’ at the moment. Just one question about the whole post …foie gras “if ethically dubious at times?” …IF? …Please.
Kindest, Wayne.
When in Rome Wayne… To be fair(ish) to us, the waiter was a master flogger of stuff and we ended up with 4 pintxos, 3 of which we never intended to buy, one of which was the tortured goose’s liver. Hope the sun finally makes an entrance down there guys, man hugs, Jay
Loved San Sebastián – and it’s amazing Pinxo bars. Bringing back all sorts of fond memories. The Aire seems to be busy all year round.
We’ve recently swapped our satnav from tomtom to Sygic on our iPhone and have to say it’s done a far better job – it’s far cheaper, has better route instructions for turn offs etc and even can tell you cheapest petrol prices in a 15 mile radius. You can get a free trial from the App Store. Might be worth giving it a go…
Hi just to let you know we got really cheap fuel on the day we crossed to Spain via the Bielsa tunnel. It was at a town called Binefar in Aragon on the way to the Tamerite de Litera aire. 91.4c a litre! Its nice and sunny and quite warm down here in San Jose on the Cabo de Gata at the moment. Enjoy your time in Spain. Weve been in Spain now since 8 october mainly wilding at some beautiful spots on the east coast.
I recommend that you try NAVMII, NAVFREE for your satnav. I use it all the time on my ipad. You can get all europe on maps that are downloaded to your ipad or phone. Works for me, at least in UK. Have yet to try on the continent.