Como se dice...?: San Sebastian and Biarritz

I have to say I like San Sebastian a lot more than Bilbao. This city is great too but something about the small oceanfront Donostia (as they call San Sebastian in Basque) with old buildings and the scent of the salty sea filling the air just seems so much more inviting than Bilbao...perhaps I'm just longing for summer and warm beachy air but this weekend was a small dose of that.

This being my third time in San Sebastian I wasn't very excited to tour the city I've already seen twice but the sun was out and it was almost 70 degrees so I had no complaints! We started the tour walking through a park where there were tons of peacocks and we made our way up to the old part of the city which lies right at the coast and the bay called La Concha because its shaped like a shell. We stopped for a pintxo (Basque tapa pronounced pincho...tapa=appetizer) and had lunch and a bit of free time to walk around. Then we walked the whole way from the start of the beach following the shell shaped coast up to Monte Igeldo, a mountain on the coast. We took the funicular (cable car thing) up to the top where surprisingly sits a small park with a few rides and carnival games. After this we went back to the hotel to rest before crossing the border to France the next day.

Since Renner and I are going to Paris this Wednesday it was nice to get a taste of French culture (literally; the chocolate is amazing), even if it was just barely across the border to the small city of Biarritz. Similarly to San Sebastian, Biarritz sits on the coast and is a summer home for many. We started the day at a chocolate museum where we learned about the process of making chocolate and got to sample some and obviously I bought a big dark chocolate bar. Next we headed towards the city and walked along the coast. After lunch we walked around the small city streets and went into a few stores. I'm so used to being able to communicate with everyone around me either in Spanish or English but when first being spoken to in French I felt so confused and lost that I for once didn't have the words to reply. Better study up on some phrases before Paris! Luckily the woman that worked at the waffle stand spoke Spanish and English and Renner and I could tell her we wanted the waffle with chocolate, ice cream and whipped cream which was absolutely amazing. The city was beautiful too and the sunshine made it even more enjoyable but all good things come to an end and we headed back to Bilbao at around 4:30 after stopping at the lighthouse for a few pictures. So here it is a rainy Sunday in Bilbao, good for blogging and reading though!