We had a cheap hotel and this time it was in a good location, not a motorway in sight. It was actually close to the sea, it's the brown building almost at the far end of the road. One of the main beaches, Zurriola, over the water opposite the hotel The water is actually the river. It was a very good location for what we wanted to do - be tourists. The road along the the buildings in the photo leads up to an enormous fort and and a gigantic statue of Jesus at the top of the hill, the other way and just around the corner is the 'old town' and a little bit further is the tourist bus stop which we've decided is a must do whenever we're in a new city. The museum of Basque History and Culture is very near the hotel but we didn't get there so will go there next time. I think it'll be very interesting, history in this part of the world is soooooooo long. We didn't go because we had been to The Naval Museum earlier in the day and 2 museums in one day would be museum overload, at least that's how we were feeling.
up the hill we went
It was a tremendously interesting place. The fort buildings and the statue were freakin' enormous
We got a bit fed up with all the people not to mention the expensiveness of the food and beer so we wandered off across the river for a nightcap - a Tia Maria coffee for me and a port for Barry, here's what we got - a lot more Tia Maria than coffee, I didn't realise that the barman was waiting for me to say "stop" so he just kept sloshing it into my cup until I did. It was a very tasty coffee. The same with Barry's port - which came out of THE FRIDGE!!!! There's a first time for everything, I guess. Wasn't bad for a 'cold' port. 
Looking from our bedroom window over the river to Zurriola Beach
We got the tourist bus to the walkway to the top of the hill and spent quite a bit of time exploring up the hill and hanging about by the sea. The main beach, La Concha, is behind us.
On our way up the hill, we had to go through this little tunnel
High walls, olden day soldiers must have been rather taller than me!
This is a tomb for British soldiers, couldn't see a date, on the side of the hill showing signs of old age and decay, slowly being taken over by the vegetation.
Not sure what this big building is, maybe the university, the building in the front with the lovely green lawn is a palace
La Concha Beach - this is the famous San Sebastian beach
At the top in the old fort is a fairly extensive museum stacked with information and 'stuff'. We now have a better understanding of the history, as presented in this museum, anyway, of San Sebastian and this area. The city has been knocked down, burnt down, ransacked numerous times. The last ransacking and burning etc was in the 1830s and everything was razed to the ground except for one church and one street of buildings. So the old town is part of the old, old town rebuilt and the rest of the city is built according to a well made plan so it is quite structured with straight wide streets with lots of trees.
After spending some time here we hoped on the tourist bus to go back into the city for some lunch and then back onto the bus to the end and back again. We really like the tourist buses and think that they're quite good value. This tourist bus trip was a warmer ride than the last 2, Bath and Edinburgh in winter = a freezing cold ride, but still we had fun. At the other end of the city is another hill which has a funicular railway to get to the top which we decided to do on Sunday but we didn't get to do that because we were a bit green as to how exactly the tourist bus worked and so didn't have the time we needed. The tickets are good for 24hours but the bus didn't start until 11am on Sunday and our tickets expired at 1pm so another thing to do on a return visit.
On Saturday night we headed to the bars for pintxos and beer in the old town, along with a few thousand other tourists. We had fun - good food and beer although some times we didn't know what we were eating.
And then we called it a night. Sunday is another day
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