The following post has been kindly contributed by our recent guest cum travel buddy Cindy. Enjoy!
San Sebastian or Donostia (or Sanse as the locals call it) is a coastal
city located at the northern border of Spain. As part of my 2-week holiday in Europe, Bel
and I were planning for a short getaway and San Sebastian appeared in our radar
as someone she knew just returned from Sanse and was raving about the
gastronomic experience. I have not heard of Sanse before this but knowing it’s
in Spain and with the promise of good food which is critical, if not top
priority to me, we immediately agreed on the destination. I have a special love
for Spain after visiting Barcelona back in 2008.
Not knowing anything about Sanse, I did a quick search on trusty Google
and instantly, the introduction and pictures made the place look so promising.
Here’s what I found just after 5mins:
2.
City of stars – One of the cities in the world
to hold the highest number of Michelin stars per square meter. Basically, you
can eat well everywhere: from a 3-stars restaurant to Basque pintxos bars, you
can find a piece of culinary art in every restaurant or bar in the city.
3.
Great weather – Climate is mild all year round,
meaning summer isn’t too hot and winter isn’t too cold. Now on hindsight, I
think I chose to ignore the fact that the weather in Sanse can actually get quite
gloomy. I mean, look at the pictures! How is this even possible? As I’m typing
this, I did a check again and one tourism site actually describes it as
“weather isn’t as sought after as other Spanish coastal destinations; the days
are often dull and dreary and rainy periods are just as likely as sunny
interludes.”
Feeling excited, we decided to go ahead with our choice. Coincidentally,
Kian had some leave to clear so he came along as well. I remember a couple of
days before we set off, I was checking the weather and the forecast showed that
it going to rain the whole time we were there, except for the day we were
flying back. At that point, Bel reconfirmed that I was in denial earlier on by
saying she has heard weather there is quite known to be crappy. Although it
didn’t sound great, we hung on to the promise of an awesome culinary
experience. Afterall, we were not very beach people.
Day 1
The journey to Sanse was rather eventful I would say. The taxi we took
to the airport indicated a close to empty petrol tank and the driver had to ask
for some advanced payment so he was able to pump some petrol. At this point, we
felt a little uneasy as the petrol didn’t seem enough to get us to the airport.
He was also trying to get us to book his cab privately by bypassing his company
when we returned, which made him appear quite 斗鸡
(code name for ‘dodgy’ as told by Kian and Bel
lol!). Thankfully, we arrived safely and on time, although the plane did not.
We were having our breakfast at Starbucks (still thinking of the delicious
marmite cheese sandwich btw), only to find out that there was going to be a 2.5
hour flight delay. It was quite a bummer for the start of a summer holiday and
this is in fact, my very first flight delay. We finally got to Bilbao after a
good 5 to 6 hours of waiting and traveling, and still had to take another 1.5 hour
coach ride to Sanse, followed by a short cab ride to where we were staying. I
think we went from being excited to “Are we there yet?”. It didn’t help that
the sky was overcast, just like what we expected.
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| Atlanta Room |
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| Glasgow Room |
While we were resting for a bit before
heading out for dinner, the noise level got higher as we were staying just
above all the tapas bars. It was close to 8pm and we could really feel the
atmosphere building up. We were in the room exclaiming “start liao, start liao”
as we prepared to head out for our highly anticipated first meal. Bel’s
colleague had very kindly given her a full page of tips on where to eat, and we
had a list from the guesthouse too. We compared the lists and found some common
bars, and went straight for those.
We were spoilt for choice and almost
every bar was bustling with tourists and its own supporters. Everyone was just
crowding around the bar counter filled with an array of delicious looking
pintxos, and the mood was just great. A pintxo is a typical Spanish snack which
consists of a piece of bread, usually baguette, as the base, topped with
basically any ingredient you like, and fastened together with a skewer or
toothpick. They were delicious and it was so tough to be selective – they all
looked so inviting and we just wanted to try everything, except for those with
green peppers. Only Bel loves them lol. (Bel: they are super nice, trust me!)
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| A typical crowd in a tapas bar |
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| Our first meal |
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| Bar number 2 - couldn't wait to dig in! |
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| Just a fraction of the amazing selection |
Bar hopping is also a must in Sanse so we tried to order sparingly at each bar to leave some stomach space for the next. We went to a total of 3 bars on our first night, which I’m sure was little considering how the people there could party all night. Regardless, we had a great time stuffing ourselves with the pintxos and immediately, we knew there would be endless eating in the next 2 nights. After a full dinner, we walked around Old Town and took some pictures while digesting the food before calling it a night.
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| Stomachs filled and happy |
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| Unglam selfie but who cares! |
Day 2
We
had breakfast at a café just along the street we were on which honestly didn’t
look very appealing from the outside. We walked past the night before and even
scoffed at it for being 斗鸡
haha,
having to end up there because there were not many breakfast choices, plus it
was also drizzling. To our surprise, it was good, and cheap too. By the time we
finished eating, the rain had stopped and the sun was out. From this point on,
the weather was just amazing despite the gloomy forecast. We walked around the
city and to La Concha Beach, where the view was just breath-taking. The sky was
blue, the water was clear and the sunshine was glorious, it was a perfect day
for the beach. After taking some pictures, we hurriedly went back to pack so we
could laze at the beach for the rest of the day. Besides eating, nuaing at the
beach was one of the key highlights of the trip.
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| Playa de la Concha - awesome does not even begin to describe it |
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| Thank God for glorious sunshine! |
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| Sights of this beautiful city |
Dinner that night, we took a taxi to a cider house called Sidreria Petritegi Sagardotegia for a local dining experience. Dinner at a cider house meant a meal at a rather obscure place (since the cider houses were all nestled in the hills around Sanse), having a fixed menu of classic local dishes and as the name suggests, accompanied by house-brewed cider as the default drink. This was highly recommended by Bel’s Spanish colleague and the guesthouse owner, so we thought “confirm must be good!”.
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| A mural outside the cider house |
The
rustic looking restaurant had a huge seating area. We sat down to place our
orders, were given our cider glasses and directed to the brewery to fill them
up. It was such a surprise as we walked into the brewery. It was a huge cold
room with barrels after barrels of cider lined up on both sides, and each
barrel could contain up to 16,000 litres of cider. We were then led to another
room to fill up our glasses – this was what I saw the moment I stepped in.
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| Bel trying to catch the cider in her glass |
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| Rustic interior |
There was a little tap on each barrel where the guy unscrewed and out came the cider! We had to standby our glasses and get ready to squat at an angle successively so we do not to make a mess. No wonder the floor was wet when we went in, not with anything else but with cider that has been spilled. There were countless barrels of cider and even though it was free flow, we did not drink much as it was too sour for our liking.
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| All you can drink cider - come help yourself |
We started the dinner and the portion for each dish was huge. Everything was quite good, and the highlight of the meal was a gigantic steak that was cooked to perfection. We took our time and savoured the food over a long and enjoyable chat. By the time we reached back to Old Town, it was almost midnight but the night was still young for those in the bars.
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| The tender and juicy steak |
Join us for part 2 soon!
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