Donostia Scenes

We got to Donostia/San Sebastian early the next morning and, much to our surprise, found a spot at the small municipal aire out by the university, perhaps a kilometer from the beach. The aire holds about 40 rigs, but there were perhaps a hundred more parked in all the surrounding campus parking lots, paying a daily parking fee. We spent a couple nights at the Unibersitatea aire, enjoying San Sebastian even more than we had in 2009, then moved on to St. Vincent de la Barquera and the Picos and then Comillas and Bilbao before returning to Donostia for yet another night and two days. There's nothing of surpassing interest in San Sebastian, no world-class museums, no battles nor coronations nor other great historic events—it's just likely the most beautiful small city in Europe, possibly the world, has great climate this time of year, and is Spain's gastronomic center. Plus it was Basque Culture Week, and the harbor area and old town were filled every night with residents and tourists taking in the various performances and then watching what has to be the world's largest week-long pyrotechnic display. Much more of that in due course. In any case, I'll restrain myself and do just four posts from Donostia/San Sebastian: city scenes, tapas bars, culture week, and the fireworks.

Donostia has the most street performers, per capita, of all
the places we've been; well, except Edinburgh, during the
Festival there

Best one-person band ever, so far

Best Sebastian, too, nearly in ecstasy

The place was more than usually mobbed

Ditto

Then things really picked up with the arrival of the old
geezers' band

And then we noticed that everyone was drifting toward the
beach...at 9:30 at night

Sunset over the harbor, half an hour before the fireworks
began (the subject of another post)

Next morning

I am out at the beach, checking out the locals' reading habits

Next night, more mobs, more culture, more tapas, more
fireworks; there would be another night too

Double-decker merry-go-round; one sees these in cities all
over Europe

Another late night out; here we are returning to the aire
after midnight, noticing the scores of RVs parked on the
streets all around