The Beach at San Sebastian

A Very Long Day!  (Part I)

          Setting out from Bordeaux, France heading for San Sebastian, Spain in the early morning of Saturday, May 30, I had no idea that it would not be until I arrived in Barcelona two days later that I would once again sleep in a bed.  This was one of those times when the independent traveler has to be flexible and bounce with the ball.  In the end, it turned out to be a good thing.  Otherwise I would have missed the all night party in Madrid!  But first, back to San Sebastian.  The short train ride took me past Biarritz and into the Pyrenees Basque country region of Southern France and Northern Spain.  After a two hour stop over in the quaint border towns of Hendaye and Irun, I arrived in the beautiful resort city of San Sebastian.

Bathing Beauties

          It had been a number of years since I last visited Spain, owing to the relative isolation of the Iberian Peninsula from the rest of Europe.  I had forgotten how much I enjoyed my earlier visits to this country, but was quickly reminded when I first caught sight of the stunningly beautiful beach of San Sebastian on the Atlantic coast.  Its beauty lay not only in the clean, white sand, the dark blue water and the green hills surrounding the crescent shaped beach, but also in the bathing beauties who studded the beach itself.  It was a pleasant struggle attempting to cope with this sensory overload and I found myself staying longer than I had planned in order to take in all that the beach had to offer.

No Room at the Inn

          Perhaps that’s why by the time I finally tore myself away, I could not find an available room anywhere in the city.  Looking back, it makes sense.  Every red-blooded man in Europe who could possibly get away from the every-day routine must have been in San Sebastian taking in the sights!  At any rate, the situation called for a quick change of plans in my rough itinerary.  After a brief walking tour of the town I was back on the train at 6 PM heading for Madrid hoping to have more luck finding a room in a larger city.  But it was not to be.