My vacation was actually quite busy since I spent many days preparing for one of the biggest days of my life: my own wedding. Living abroad, it was hard to do certain preparations before returning to Finland, so I met people, visited places, made some decoration and program etc etc. But I was happy to be busy with that. And it was all worth it since the day went so smoothly, happily, amazingly, wonderfully, lovingly and all the other possible positive adjectives added to this list! The happiest day of my life! And I got to share it all with many wonderful people of my life and my now-husband H's life, and actually saw many of them after a looong time. Just absolutely awesome!
 |
| The happy couple |
After the wedding I spent a few days with H's family who came to Finland all the way from Vietnam. And a couple of days after they returned to Asia, we also traveled back to France where we already had a common home since H moved all of his stuff to my new home before coming to Finland some weeks behind me. I was happily surprised by seeing that our garden had got some greenness after the hot and dry seasons. H sent me a pic in August of yellow grass, cut down bushes and a tree that had dropped its leaves. I saw for the first time in my life that a tree makes leaves two times in one year. But I'm so happy for it. Maybe we'll get the autumn colors this year after all.
 |
| Our dry yard in early August... |
 |
| A second spring! |
We spent only one night in France and then packed our bags again since a honeymoon in Spain was waiting for us! It was not maybe the most comfortable option to travel there by an over-night bus that took 10 hours but it for sure was the cheapest: around 30€ each. Our bus got stopped at the boarder of France and Spain and the guards kept us there for 45 minutes before they took two customers away and let us cross the bridge. We arrived to San Sebastian bus station after 8 am.
After dropping our bags to Hotel Monte Ulia (which ended up to be quite far for walking with suitcases), we thought it's good to explore the old town hill in the centre when we are not exhausted by walking yet. On the way we saw Koruko Andre Mariaren church and as an interesting detail from the church I say that the main entrance - and actually the only visible entrance - was on the side of the church when looked from the inside. Usually churches have the biggest door at the end of the central corridor of the church. After a quick visit indoors in the Koruko Andre Mariaren, we started climbing. We wanted to go to the Jesus statue we saw from the downtown but we were not quite sure always which way to go, even when we checked the street signs or from Google Maps. That's because there was no mention of anything close to "Jesus" or "Messiah" or such. Everywhere was written only Bateria this or Bateria that. Well, we did find our way and the view from top of the hill was amazing! Ocean on one side, while the side was bays with beaches, old beautiful buildings and hills/mountains as the background for all the land. One of the coolest landscapes I've seen!
 |
| Koruko Andre Mariaren. The statue in the high is San Sebastian whose body was pierced by arrows. |
 |
| Climbing uphills |
 |
| From the top of the Eastern hill of the bay. |
On the way down we saw that the aquarium of San Sebastian is located also nearby and checked that before the lunch. Disappointingly, it first seemed that the place is more of a museum of marine than an aquarium with living sea creatures but behind the first part there were also several interesting fish. The coolest part was the one big pool that was a place for smaller fish, sharks and rays, and one could see it well from a 360 walk-through pipe. And as an honourable mention, the small "worms" that look like Hattifattners (hattivatit) from Moomins.
 |
| One of us saw these as delicious. You may guess who. |
 |
| How many fish can you find? |
We had heard already in Finland that San Sebastian is famous for pintxos, small snacks that one can have either for a snack, starter or combining several of them, it can be also a full meal. Pintxos are like Spanish tapas in general but all the pintxos are built on top of a piece of bread. So when we headed back to the busiest streets after the aquarium, we thought of trying those (also because most of the restaurants were super full of people and the only place with a table for us was serving only pintxos). Pretty good stuff, I have to say, even though many pintxos have raw fish or sea food or something else that is not to my taste. But I still found very good meat and cheese pintxos. And only 2€ each.
 |
| Our lunch pintxo bar. |
 |
| One random pintxo bar among many in the city. |
In the afternoon it was time to go to the beach. San Sebastian has two beaches, one that is more for swimming and boats and one that is good for surfing since the waves are higher on that side. We started with the bigger beach with the calmer waves and a nice view to the island located in the middle of the bay. The water was not cold and one could stay there for a long time. (Also the air was somewhere between 20-25 degrees, so a perfect weather for swimming.) In the evening we tried to find a nice restaurant near our hotel but that was not so easy. According to Google Maps, there were only a few restaurants within a kilometer and only of them was open on Sunday evening. And that one opened at 8:30 pm. Hmm, Spanish people really eat even later than the French... Without having many options, we walked to Zelai Txiki after 8 and that ended up to be a fancier place. The terrace with a wonderful view was accessible only if you had done a reservation and the prices were not the cheapest either. However, very tasty food, amazingly delicious desserts and a very nice and interactive staff was surely worth of experiencing! So if you are not traveling to San Sebastian with a minimal budget, we absolutely recommend this place.
 |
| I have never had as good fish portion as this. I just loved the sauce they served with the fish and vegetables! |
 |
| Great cheesecake and both of ours favorite food from San Sebastian: pastel vasco (gateau Basque in French). Aaaaamazing!! |
On the next morning we rented bikes from our hotel and cycle through the center and along the beach to Miramar Palace that was not actually worth of visiting. The palace looked like a bigger mansion and we couldn't even get inside much and also the garden was somewhat boring. The best thing was the view to the bay again. From the palace it was easy to continue following the seaside and we decided to go to the Western side hill of the bay, knowing that there is a small amusement park on the top. We took an old cable car to save our legs from climbing uphills and the view towards the city was even better better than from the Eastern hill from the Jesus statue. Ah, we chose a great place for our honeymoon! And we also took a couple of rides since they didn't cost more than a few euros. In the amusement park we paid attention to the signs that told the opening hours of each ride and started to wonder weather the staff would actually have a siesta from 14 to 16 or even 17 o'clock. Eventually we left the hill a bit before 2, so we don't know what happened in the park within those hours. But based on the next days' experiences, I believe they really shut everything down for 3 hours in the middle of the day. This whole siesta thing is something almost unbelievable to someone who has never experienced such. The evening we spent leisurely trying the other beach. The big waves were awesome and fun but the swimming area was quite limited due to the big amount of different level surfers.
 |
| From Miramar Palace that is now partly used as a university. |
 |
| An old "train car" that took us uphills. |
 |
| This hill offered even a nicer view over the bay and the city than the other side. |
 |
| You can nowhere else have a boat ride with such a great view! |
For the third day we took it easier and chose only one destination to visit: the science museum Eureka. The place was a bit further from the downtown and away from everything else but it was quite interesting with many different areas. There was a small aquarium, human body section with actual human body parts, electricity area, mechanics section, a room where one could try physical challenges to jump, stretch, react etc. Hours passed by quickly and we got hungry but had to still take a bus to the center because there was nothing nearby Eureka. We found a nice restaurant called Yellow Deli and needing for something fresh, both I and H ordered salads. We fell in love with the restaurant. The food was good and fresh, the Irish music very cheerful and the staff didn't seem like staff. They were just a group of people enjoying doing what they did. A very home-like atmosphere and the people working there had even time to talk with us a bit. The service was different from any other restaurant and we were just feeling so happy and peaceful. Also the design of the restaurant and the way they had decorated even their menus was fun and kind of hippie-like in our opinion. Could nothing but enjoy the experience.
 |
| There are so many blood veins in our head! |
 |
| The scariest looking turtle I have ever seen: alligator snapping turtle. Notice also the claws that it had in all of its feet. |
Our fourth day we started by going to the beach again, having a picnic lunch there. We left all our valuables at the hotel so that we could even go swimming together without worrying someone stealing something else than our food. H is a huge fan of sea food and since we were visiting a seaside town, we had to find some nice octopus, squid and oysters for him to try. I actually dared to try some squid from him and have to say that the structure was not as I expected it to be. Positively surprised but I only wanted to try the shell part, not the strange-looking body. Nearby the restaurant there happened to be a cinema and on an impulse we decided to try Spanish cinema. And the movie we chose: Andry Birds 2. Haha, also the ticket seller noted to us that it's in Spanish but we thought we might enjoy it after all, or at least see out of interest how well we can follow the plot without understanding the spoken lines. There were only adults in the audience so it definitely is not meant only for kids and we did laugh. Many times. Go and see it yourself so that you would understand. It's really fun. Later we went to a small bar to order some oysters for H so that he gets to try all he wanted to.
We started our last day in Spain by going to Yellow Deli restaurant again. On that day we had a better talk with the staff there and they explained a bit of the background for the restaurant chain that is located in a few countries. It is run by a community of Christian people who see it more as a hobby than a work. For desserts we thought of eating some churros with chocolate. Don't go to a fast food restaurant to eat those, just as a hint. The proper cafe churros I had in Madrid last year were a lot better. Nearby our lunch places there was the last interesting-seeming museum for us. San Telmo museum which tells about the history of San Sebastian and also had a big exhibition about robots. I think the best thing for H there was when he got to play the original Megaman.
The five days in San Sebastian were all in all awesome! It was relaxing, exciting, entertaining, refreshing and adventurous. The city seemed to be built for a bit richer people within the few kilometers from the center (based on how most of the houses looked like), the landscapes were amazing, people were friendly and open and the Basque language really is very different from Spanish. Many places had signs written in those two languages. The only challenging part of the trip were the siesta times when restaurants, shops and other places closed for hours in the afternoon. Good luck finding a place for a late lunch or afternoon activities.
 |
| Basque language vs Spanish language |
 |
| Once more a pintxo picture |
 |
| On our way home we had time to have a small walk from France to Spain. |
Ei kommentteja:
Lähetä kommentti