San-sabastian-old-town–3

Sunday, May 27, 2012
We had a pleasant breakfast after which we packed up and left Cadaques, ostensibly straight for San Sabastian, on the north coast of Spain, a long drive. But, at the last minute we decided to go north along the coast to El Port de la Selva. This is a decision I will never regret. The hotel manager where we stayed mentioned that it was sort of similar to Cadaques, but that was really an understatement. Driving into El Port de la Selva one really just feels at home with the place (Picture: El Port de la Selva – 1, 2, 3 and 4). Unfortunately we had a long drive ahead of us and could not linger, but this is one place I know I will return to.

Originally we planned to travel to San Sebastian, hugging the Pyrenees mountain range between Spain and France, but decided against that as we had to make up time somehow as it was now close to 12:00 and we had some 700 kilometers to cover for the day. We decided to get onto the Autostrada (toll road) and reign in some time. From El Port de la Selva we headed back to Figueres whereafter we jumped onto the Autostrada, and continued on towards Girona, Barcelona, Lleida, Zaragoza and ending up in Pamplona, that is, “running of the bulls, Pamplona”.

We got there early, the bulls run in July, not in May. We drove around the town, looking for a spot to settle down for a drink but alas, most places were closed, it being a Sunday, and people were probably taking an extended siesta. It was getting late and we still had 90 odd kilometers to go to San Sabastian. Got lost, stopped at a robot, asked the tow truck guy next to us for directions, he said “follow me, that’s where I am heading”, obviously spoken in Spanish, or Basque, and obviously we did not understand a word of it. In good faith we followed the tow truck guy with his car in tow and somehow ended up on the correct Autostrada to San Sabastian.

We arrived in San Sabastian at around 20:00 (sun only goes down at around 22:30 this time of the year), still needing to find a hotel. We were lucky to find a hotel for a good price in a perfect spot just off the main beach. Dropped the luggage and walked along the promenade (Picture: San Sebastian – 1, 2) to the old town (Picture: San Sebastian, old town – 1, 2, 3) where we had beers and tapas, oh, and then we had supper.

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