Day 3 Belin Beliet to Donastia San Sebastian

Another great night's sleep, only one other van on our site which turned up at about 10.30pm.

We took our time getting ready to leave, sorted out some cupboards and stuff so our living area was not so cluttered! 😁 The OCD sufferers amongst us will relate to that 😊.

Gareth took the opportunity to clean the array of dead bugs from the front of the van, though we have left the step at home so above the windscreen looks like a bug graveyard!.

Leaving at about 11am we took off in search of a post box for our one postcard and then set off for San Sebastian.

Well, I can't say how lovely it was to have to put our sunglasses on. It made me question my decision to wear woolly tights and winter boots....let's see how the weather is when we land eh 🤔.

Weirdly we seemed to arrive at a toll every five minutes at €5.60 a go 🤔 when yesterday we travelled for hours for €44!

The drive towards the Pyrenees is just delightful, lots of red roofed low rise buildings on hills looking more like something out of the Heidi story.

It's a long weekend and Fiesta on Monday in Spain so when we stopped at a services just inside the border we struggled to find a parking spot due to the amount of lorries parked. I know in France lorries can't travel at the weekend unless they're refridgerated so assume something similar applies in Spain.

We headed for a motorhome stop on 'park4night' in the university area of San Sebastian provided by the town and luckily grabbed one of the few remaining spots. It's €3.30 a night including water and waste! Bargain.

So off we trotted on a 30min walk to La Concha bay, and it's worth it. We could understand that it's very busy in the summer because it's gorgeous. A huge sandy beach with an island in the middle of the bay with hills either side and fronted by some lovely buildings the other side of the promenade.

Even the seating along the prom is lovely, all wrought ironwork with wooden seating.

We walked all the way round the bay to the old town via a stop at Cafe de la Concha right on the beach. Gareth asked for a cider in a bottle and a 75cl bottle arrive with a cork which had a pouring hole! The waiter then proceeded to pour the cider from a great height into the glass 😊 haha, not only did we laugh at that but also that he thought he was getting a small cider! As I don't like the taste (much to the distain of my Smithy ancestry) he was facing the prospect of having to drink it all himself.

As it was he drank it all and many more on our tour of the 'old town'. This area is beautiful and definitely worth a visit.

On our way round to the old town I couldn't help but stop and watch a gorgeous dog entertaining himself by looking for what I think was fish! Bless him, he was so happy, his tail going mad, walking backwards and forwards in a pool of seawater, Gareth had to drag me away. 💓 Video in the blog 😁

Onwards to traffic-free narrow streets full of bars, shops and restaurants all seemingly serving delicious tapas!

We sampled quite a few lovely tapas in our four or five stops, accompanied by cider and Rioja before deciding we had better find our wayback to the campsite 😁.

It takes a bit of getting used to wearing your facemask everywhere until you sit down, so we do feel for those nations that have this as a regulation. We've found everyone is so polite and kind, even the little kids are also wearing them, I assume because the parents feel the need. I must say I was slightly disappointed when I used two of the bar toilets and Spanish women came out before me, walking straight out of the toilet without washing their hands. I did, as soap and paper towels were readily available.

As we made our way out of the old town towards the prom we can across a plaza of bars and restaurants, one of which had a traditional musical band sat around a table. We were just walking away when they started to play, it was lovely. Video in blog 😊

I assume Covid has brought about a role reversal, and they aren't allowed to perform so they sat, ordered drinks, performed and we all crowded round, masked, enjoyed the music and applauded them.

We took a breezy walk back along the prom, which by now was very busy, enjoyed watching the doggie families walking along the beach, dogs all playing with each other and stopped just short of our site for a last drink.

San Sebastian, if you didn't know already, is beautiful, definitely worth a longer visit and for sure, we will be back.