I love Spain.
To the point that we were going to forgo it because we couldn't dedicate the time to really explore it. But as we left Marrakech and traveled to Tangier to take the Ferry to Spain, we remembered how delicious our first glass of sangria had been a week earlier and decided we had a little bit of time to explore Malaga and San Sebastian on our way to Amsterdam. We did make a few unfortunate blunders that hopefully you can learn from if you're reading this for educational purposes.
We discovered that we got off at the wrong station for our original destination of Algiceres. So we had to take the ferry to Tarifa, then a free bus to Algiceres, finally another bus to Malaga, a seaside city Erin had visited when her friends had lived there. I had never heard of it, but it's apparently a popular town and was nominated as the cultural center of Europe a few years back.
We were saved by the rugby community from staying at an expensive glorified hostel we had been somewhat forced into through airbnb.com (I do not recommend this website. primarily for the $7 a night reservation fee they charge). Mentxu, our hostess, had been teammates on the Malaga women's rugby team with one of Erin's friends and was infinitely gracious and helpful, even though she spoke no english and our spanish seemed to fail us miserably. Although we had only a little over a day to explore the city, it seems worth it to come back through next time.
Sadly, our plan to go to Toledo with our extra night between Malaga and San Sebastian was cut out of our mini-tour because of the price of train tickets. Toledo is a cute medieval town about a 30 minute train ride outside of Madrid, the 'home' of Don Quixote and delicious tapas. Instead we stayed at a hostel in the Chueca neighborhood of Madrid (the gay district), and ate some tasteless tapas in the neighborhood.
To the point that we were going to forgo it because we couldn't dedicate the time to really explore it. But as we left Marrakech and traveled to Tangier to take the Ferry to Spain, we remembered how delicious our first glass of sangria had been a week earlier and decided we had a little bit of time to explore Malaga and San Sebastian on our way to Amsterdam. We did make a few unfortunate blunders that hopefully you can learn from if you're reading this for educational purposes.
We discovered that we got off at the wrong station for our original destination of Algiceres. So we had to take the ferry to Tarifa, then a free bus to Algiceres, finally another bus to Malaga, a seaside city Erin had visited when her friends had lived there. I had never heard of it, but it's apparently a popular town and was nominated as the cultural center of Europe a few years back.
We were saved by the rugby community from staying at an expensive glorified hostel we had been somewhat forced into through airbnb.com (I do not recommend this website. primarily for the $7 a night reservation fee they charge). Mentxu, our hostess, had been teammates on the Malaga women's rugby team with one of Erin's friends and was infinitely gracious and helpful, even though she spoke no english and our spanish seemed to fail us miserably. Although we had only a little over a day to explore the city, it seems worth it to come back through next time.
Sadly, our plan to go to Toledo with our extra night between Malaga and San Sebastian was cut out of our mini-tour because of the price of train tickets. Toledo is a cute medieval town about a 30 minute train ride outside of Madrid, the 'home' of Don Quixote and delicious tapas. Instead we stayed at a hostel in the Chueca neighborhood of Madrid (the gay district), and ate some tasteless tapas in the neighborhood.
The next morning we woke up early (Erin was not happy about this), and went to the station to get our bus up to San Sebastian. Along the way the scenery got greener and hillier as we climbed into the low mountains. It wasn't until we hit the bus stop to our camp that I saw how beautiful San Sebastian is. Enjoying the city had to wait a bit as we spent a very tense 30 minutes in line waiting to see if we'd get a campsite. We luckily got one of the last ones because we didn't have a car. We got settled into the spot which was as wide as our tent, and hitched a ride back down to town from a hilarious retired Aussie couple who were traveling around Europe for 3 months.
San Sebastian is proudly "not in Spain, nor in France, but in Basque country," and is a lovely place to relax for a few days. We went during the high high season, and even then it wasn't overwhelmingly crowded, nor as expensive as we were led to believe. The city is built around a trio of bays, each one dominated by a beach, making it a bit like Monaco or Paris with the beaches of Rio. There is cute old city, where we spent almost all of our time. The pintxos at any of the places in the old city are fairly good, but if you're looking for more modern fare, skip the Fuego Negro, and go to Cuchara de San Telmo. The pintxos are around 3 to 4 Euro each, but well worth the price. it was the best food we had in Spain (though we were trying to keep to a budget).
Not having learned our lesson about last minute planning, we only got down to figuring out our exit strategy the night before we were to leave San Sebastian. Holy hell it's expensive to get out of Spain. I looked at everything - Planes, trains, buses, and ride shares. In the end decided to splurge on an overnight train Paris and then on to Amsterdam in order to catch the Amsterdam Pride festival which is coincidentally happening this weekend. yay. and ugh. I hope we won't have to splurge like that many more times.
-SB
San Sebastian is proudly "not in Spain, nor in France, but in Basque country," and is a lovely place to relax for a few days. We went during the high high season, and even then it wasn't overwhelmingly crowded, nor as expensive as we were led to believe. The city is built around a trio of bays, each one dominated by a beach, making it a bit like Monaco or Paris with the beaches of Rio. There is cute old city, where we spent almost all of our time. The pintxos at any of the places in the old city are fairly good, but if you're looking for more modern fare, skip the Fuego Negro, and go to Cuchara de San Telmo. The pintxos are around 3 to 4 Euro each, but well worth the price. it was the best food we had in Spain (though we were trying to keep to a budget).
Not having learned our lesson about last minute planning, we only got down to figuring out our exit strategy the night before we were to leave San Sebastian. Holy hell it's expensive to get out of Spain. I looked at everything - Planes, trains, buses, and ride shares. In the end decided to splurge on an overnight train Paris and then on to Amsterdam in order to catch the Amsterdam Pride festival which is coincidentally happening this weekend. yay. and ugh. I hope we won't have to splurge like that many more times.
-SB
PS - another funny incident was on our first day in Europe we decided to get some tapas and were persuaded by a very suave Cuban to dine at his restaurant.
During our meal, a local TV news crew decided to do a story on this gentleman, got a couple of other tourists to pretend to be persuaded to eat there (again), and then asked me, as a tourist, what I thought of his work. I did such a good job, he gave us a sherry tasting digestif as a thank you. I would have settled for a discounted or free meal, but can't complain.
During our meal, a local TV news crew decided to do a story on this gentleman, got a couple of other tourists to pretend to be persuaded to eat there (again), and then asked me, as a tourist, what I thought of his work. I did such a good job, he gave us a sherry tasting digestif as a thank you. I would have settled for a discounted or free meal, but can't complain.
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