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Published: July 29th 2017
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It had rained over it and this morning it was overcast and light drizzle. Similar start to the day today as yesterday except this time before we took another tour (walking this time) we separately picked up some brekkie to take out. Dan went to the bakery I'd gone to the night before for some pastries and I got a queso & jamon croissant, yoghurt, berry compote & granola pot and a venti americano from Starbucks, I'm a corporate whore and I needed a major caffeine fix after last nights CF session had left me feeling beaten up and knackered!
Today's tour was run by San Sebastián tourism and was led by our guide Oliver. It was a two hour walking tour of the old town which included 3 churches, the port and the San Telmo museum. We learnt quite a lot about the city, especially in its early days. San Sebastián is in the 'Basque' region of Spain and they have a local language again called Basque. It is not actually known when and how this language was formed apparently! The city was built in its location because of its good defensive position surrounded on 3 sides by the
sea and mont Urgull. Napoleon asked the King of Spain to allow him passage through the country in order to attack and conquer Portugal (at at time an ally of the British empire) which the King obliged however, once Napoleon and the French troops were done and settled within Spain they sort of declared they were in control and, amongst other Spanish cities presumably, San Sebastián was occupied by the French. That was until the English and Portuguese started a siege on the city and eventually breached the walls, unfortunately they then looted and burnt the place (nice one boys!). When the locals rebuilt San Sebastián they decided to loose the defensive city walls and stop being a city built for war but instead a city built for tourism, which is what it remains as till this day. We also learnt about local past times, religion, the annual San Sebastián day (a day of playing the drums, singing and partying) and he phenomenon of 'gastro society'.
After the tour we sought out a place for lunch and checked the map for what to do next. We settled on catching the bus to the western most side of the city
and getting the 105 year old funicular railway (eek) up he steep hillside to see the hotel, tower, light house, views and old fun fair on top of mont Igeldo. The funicular was showing its age, but was a good experience none the less. At the top, the fun fair was a mix of sleepy, decrepit and depressing at first as it was really quiet. It did get a bit tough and I didn't feel too sorry for it give its prime location (he views were great) and Dan's €5 go on the 'rubber duck fishing game' made my entire afternoon. He won a horrendous yellow monkey which shrieks and has red glowing eyes when you squeeze his tummy, and by 'won' I mean picked! Once we had seen all there was to see, we wandered down the hill to the bus stop and headed back to the other end of he bay.
Content that we had seen everything worth seeing, and pretty shattered, we retired to our room for a few hours before dinner to recharge and get prepped for our traveling home tomorrow. At about 7pm we headed out for our final meal of the trip, we
opted for 'The Good Burger', a posh(ish) fast food style place. We both got a greasy burger and chips with a refillable Coke Zero, it was good although not quite filling enough. Thankfully, we planned to get gelato anyway so we headed back towards he town hall and e gelato shop Dan went to the big before. We got a couple of monster scoops in a waffle cone and the add melts so fast! We barely managed to contain the imminent spillage/droppage, but we managed. It was pretty good gelato, I had Oreo and coffee crunch, yum yum.
Finally, we grabbed a couple of tins of San Miguel and sat on the beach with them, enjoying the last good views of San Sebastián, and indeed our entire trip, before our early busses tomorrow morning. We chatted about our favourite and least favourite country, city, hostel and train journeys and why before draining our funnies and heading home for some rest before home time :-(
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