Donostia- San sebastián (From my Basque diaries)
“Donostia: an immaculate sea pearl”
Thursday 25th December 2008
I´m certainly tired. I haven´t slept all the hours I should. This christmas has been different: far away from home, with a new job and sort of an unexpected celebration.
The fact is that I hadn´t seen this friend for a bit more than a year. She suddenly contacted me to spend Christmas with her. I found myself drinking “mate” at Helen´s flat at 8 in the morning. The table with leftovers of pudding, “turrones” and “cava”…. Barcelona was quite… One sip, two sips, yawnings, chats, ome memories from London… all very well mixed up… “(1)Fosca” jumped over my legs once and once again, (how funny is to say that not only the “mate” but also that sweet black cat was hers…)
Returned home around midday, had lunch and tried to sleep before going on my first trip to “Donostia”, the Basque name for the city of “San Sebastián”: one of the most known cities in the Basque Country at Guipuzcoa zone.
Hey!… someone interrupted my relax all of a sudden. A serious man´s voice called me on the phone to say that “he wasn´t going-to- be- there”. I was confused, he was confused. I was quite sleepy but realised I was picking up a phone call from Dublin. He started speaking in Spanish, I answered in English. He continued in English then. He said I had to call a man at a hostel in front of his and ask him to open the place for me. I remember he muttered something like: “You have a Spanish mobile number”. Oh…! it was David!, the Irish host of the hostel I was going to stay in!. “No problem” –adaptable as I am- I said! (although I thought the phone call was unusual and strange, I realised it was going to be amongst one of my exceptional and funny stories to tell. I didn´t ask many things, almost nothing in fact because: I really needed to sleep!).
At 23:25 I find myself on the bus to Donostia. I´m sharing this new experience with a guy I almost don´t know, an acquaintance with whom I use to play tennis on Sundays.
This trip is quite mad. It is some kind of unplanned- accidental trip. I just wanted to break the routine, do something different towards the end of the year!.
What surprises my decision would bring…? let´s find out!
Friday 26th December 2008
The trip was great. After travelling like for 8 hours, we arrived even before than expected. We were there… killing time at a bar, 6:30 in the morning. Took the 28 bus to our hostel and finally rang David´s door bell. I made a phone call to the man that was supposed to open us the door. I later realised I had written the wrong phone number and that´s why we didn´t have an answer. In the meantime I sent a message to my misterious host in Dublin telling him that I hadn´t contact this another man. In a couple of minutes we decided to go directly to the other hostel and finally we met this man.
No, we weren´t homeless! Everything went perfect! This man took us to the place, showed us the rooms and facilities and we were really pleased! The place was so marvelous! Perfectly clean, cozy, with free access to Internet, a beautiful kitchen fully equipped, and the best of all: we were completely alone! There was something marvelous in the air, you felt “at home” from the very first moment, you lost the sense that you were paying for a service, David Quinn Alai Berri it´s like being in a family, it really excedeed our expectations!
David called me back again from Dublin early in the morning when he saw my message, luckily enough I could tell him everything was right… but felt pity to wake him up!
We had a quick breakfast. The morning was cold and rainy. We walked to the old town of the city and started to take the first pictures under the rain, went to the tourist information centre and took the tourist bus behind the Victoria Eugenia theatre afterwards.
Donostia is a small city, if you have time, you really can visit it walking. We had the impression that there was no need to take the tourist bus but it was raining like hell, we were bored, didn´t know anything so we had to start discovering the place somehow!
The bus takes you around places like the “Plaza de la Constitución”, the main square in the centre of the town, the “Alameda”, The “Londres hotel” that is very old, the “Santa Clara island” -were sick people were isolated to avoid contagions-. The famous and central “Playa de la Concha”, a spectacular beach, the “Monte Igeldo” and lots of famous natural landscapes.
The trip was short and the weather was bad but we didn´t know what to do!.
So, this was a quick city tour just to know where we were standing!.
As for the city´s architecture and buildings, Donostia has a strong French aristocratic influence. The city itself is very elegant and clean, in perfect conditions and sober style. The buildings are very stylish and distinguished. Green areas are a big part of the place. The trees are perfectly cut, the plants and flowers are vigorous and colourful. There´s a wide range of greens that makes natural artistic contrasts. Every landscape seems a shot from a postcard. On the other hand, talking about colours, I saw those strange colours in people´s eyes, very similar to the ones I saw in Galicia. I am convinced about the fact that the cold- rainy weather in the north of Spain influences skin and eyes colours. It´s difficult to define, but I would say that many people have grey eyes, others… very light brown with some touch of green, but in general terms my impression is that they have “a different sort of light eyes”, I could talk about the strange enchantment of “Northern indefinite pigment eyes” or “Northern mountainous eyes”.
People are extremely nice, quite and friendly. You can hear them speaking in Euskera at shops and streets. They dress themselves very elegantly. Women wear exclusive furs. Clothes in general are expensive and high quality, very stylish too. I think the Basque Country has a strong identity of good quality in many senses: not only food, wines and landscapes but people, clothes, services…
We stopped many people on the streets to ask for directions and general indications.
There was a man that changed his way and came with us to the street we were looking for, then he said goodbye to us with very good manners, I have to say I felt as if I were some kind of vip visitor there! There were three old men -at different times and situations- that told me very nice things (the typical “guapa” amongst others), they also shook my hand and kissed my cheeks really hard and enthusiastically! The attitude of the people is more than amazing. They are not in a hurry and they like you to stop them and keep talking to you for a while.
Regarding the language, some people speak Euskera because they learnt it at their homes with family or later on their own but I was sad to hear that many of them didn´t learn it because it was not allowed in the Franco period. What is really encouraging is to know that children can learn it at school nowadays. We tried to learn some words of course!, we said “Agur” (good bye) and “Eskerrik Asko” (thanks) when we went to shops and learnt some random words like “Bai” (yes) o, “Kalea” (street) and “Kaixo” (hello).
In the afternoon we went for some typical “pintxos”, some sort of fresh “tapas” and I personally drank the “txacoli” that is a delicious typical white wine. We continued walking along the beach and found the acuarium and naval museum although we didn´t enter. At the end of the right side of “Playa de La Concha” there is a marvelous Txillida sculpture. Txillida is a famous artist at Donostia , there is a museum dedicated to his art but it is in a town nearby , regrettably, we didn´t have time to go there!
Saturday 27th December 2008
We shared room with a man from Navarra and an American guy, once again we were amazed towards the friendliness of people and the nice feeling at the hostel. After sleeping like 12 hours (we really needed), went out of the hostel around midday. We started walking and visited the “Buen Pastor Cathedral”. I loved to see ads and brochures written in Euskera. We continued walking and saw the beautiful “María Cristina park” on our way. “Anoeta” football stadium that is located near the Amara bus station was the next visit. Then, we went for lunch to a typical place where I tasted the “Kalimotxo” (wine with coke).
Our next goal was to visit “El peine de los vientos”, another famous sculpture by Txillida that is situated to the left extreme of the “Playa de La concha” but we visited the “Palacio de Miramar” before.
The two palaces we visited have gardens. You can not enter to the palaces, just walk around the lovely and perfect grass and flowers breathing fresh air and cudling your back with the beach sights below.
Later on, we walked again to the old town that is full of typical shops where you can buy souvenirs.
After walking all day we didn´t want to go out at night so we enjoyed going back to the hostel.
Sunday 28th December 2008
We welcomed a young couple from Australia at the hostel, after a nice chat in the kitchen, the morning found us visiting the “Palacio de Aiete” in a very residential zone. This was the place where General Franco used to spend his summers since 1940…
Right now I remember an ad I saw hung up on the streets at the old town, it said… “España Torturadora” (Torturing Spain), and it was like a shout in my ear and a tear in my heart. Whatever is said, Donostia breaths a strong- own and lively identity everywhere. It is an immaculate- bright sea pearl anyone should visit at some point in life.
(This was my departure day so I left a short paper note and 2 “bombones” at the main hall of the hostel for the misterious owner I never met…)
(1)Fosca= Dark (in Catalan language)
Donostia
